Being Digital at P&G, Raising $100K for Disaster Relief

To inspire some of its key employees with the power of social media, P&G held a social media experiment tonight.

Folks with social media experience of one kind or another from around the country converged on P&G to team up with employees and help raise funds for disaster relief through Tide’s Loads of Hope project.

And we did just that…$20 at a time. $50,000 was raised in four hours employing everything from Digg, blogs and Twitter to MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and a host of niche community sites. Tide matched the $50K for the $100K total.

What did I learn?

It’s not about age, it’s about attitude.
This event reinforced what I’ve been seeing anecdotally at every event I attend. Many assume that high school kids fall out of bed knowing how to create profiles on these sites and become power users and that, er, more mature folks don’t know a tinyurl link from a sausage link. This is just not always the case. While digital natives might figure out online more easily than others, you cannot assume your audience’s technical ability based on age alone. It boils down to attitude.

Fast-Moving Collaboration
The teams that broke their groups down into smaller groups around specific strategies were able to test more ideas more easily and quickly, focus on the ones that did work and drop the ones that did not gain traction.

The competitive nature of the event was intense as the final minutes approached. It felt a bit like being on The Apprentice--less the washed up celebrities of course.

There was an amazing dashboard in every room that listed sales, site visits and conversion rate for each team with a Tide Twitter Feed running beneath this information. As my team fell behind, I wanted to invoke the spirit of Glen Garry Glenross and note that "coffee is for closers." But I needed to focus. By the way, if you still want to get a vintage t-shirt orders will be taken until 11am EDT on Thursday, March 12.

A Benefits Extend Beyond Event
The real benefits from this exercise for the P&G participants are yet to come. Social media is an investment that increases in relevance over time. While a newspaper ad loses its value a day after printing, social media content increases in value over time. And this fact alone is an exciting opportunity for brands, individuals and great causes like Loads of Hope.

tags | Tide | P&G | Loads of Hope | social media | advertising | marketing | brand

Comments

[Mihaela (Dr. V)]

This strikes me as a brilliant way for a company to learn about social media and demonstrate its value to executives. I love the idea.

As a teacher, I'm with you on the "it's not about age" point. I think the whole idea of "digital natives" is a misunderstood myth, and I work hard to help my students live up to the expectations that they know everything about everything online. But it is true, they learn very quickly and without fear - that's different in their generation, as compared to some of my older colleagues who still don't believe me that they can't break their computer by writing a blog :)

[Elliot Campbell]

I love this idea. This is a great event to show the true power of social media and its impact. But in addition, seems like a great way to raise money for a worthy cause.

Congratulations to every one involved!

[Debs]

Kevin - nice finally meeting you face to face as well!!

[Postcard Printing]

Impartial analysis, great job; will be reading your other posts too.

[Kevin Dugan]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. And Dr. V, it is good to know my anecdotal experiences are reinforced by your own!

[Sarah]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

http://www.craigslisttool.info

[Caroline]

I love what you said about social media - "Social media is an investment that increases in relevance over time. While a newspaper ad loses its value a day after printing, social media content increases in value over time." I've never really thought about it that way, and yet it makes perfect sense. Fortunately, Loads of Hope will continue to reap the benefits of this social media.