Your Personal Apology

Will a sincere apology make you feel better when you have to end up a trustful relationship?

O.b. tampon is a brand under the parent company of Johnson & Johnson. In 2010, due to a distribution problem, it had to go off the shelves. Women were very upset about the sudden loss of their brand. In fact, the loyal fans of this feminine hygiene product became outraged. They were buying up all the boxes of o.b. tampon they could find and those remaining boxes were even selling on Ebay for as much as $80. Furthermore, some of the fans created a website and called for women to boycott all Johnson & Johnson products.

This was never expected by the company and the market was asking for actions to save its consumers and the brand image. Therefore, a campaign was created to apologize to every woman personally. It developed a customized song and music video apology for each person in the o.b. database. The customer who received the link to the website only needed to type their names in the input field and click enter, and their personal apology from the o.b. tampon would show up. After watching the video, consumers were prompted to clicke for a o.b. tampons coupon or could share their personalized video or the link.  This marketing campaign took online personalization to a whole new level. In the video, the user not only hears their name sung by the handsome singer, they also see it on the sheet music, written in rose pedals on the beach, sky written in the clouds, tattooed on the arm of the singer, and on a hot air balloon floating across the sky. All these elements with the hilarious lyrics turned this heart-broken moment into a joyful event.

The site was originally sent out to the 65,010 customers in the o.b. database. Social aspects were added to the site allowing those 65,010 users to share the video and thelink with their friends on different social platforms. Within 3 months, the site was share on Facebook over a million times, and shared on Twitter 1.8 million times. The site generated 27 million unique visits and this campaign won awards across areas such as Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Crisis Management Marketing and Advertising.

This marketing campaign is truly brilliant back in 2010. Now 4 years have passed, I am wondering, what can be improved about this campaign if it is going to release in 2014. What’s your opinion?