This has been on my mind ever since the Dawn dish soap commercial (see below) has begun to re-air. I get it, cute animals are being affected by oil spills, and we need to save them. But, if you’ll notice, on the bottom of the screen, it says “simulated demonstration”. I mean obviously they didn’t helicopter-in animals who were affected by an oil spill, to a sound stage that was pre-set with dawn liquid soap bottles and tubs of water, with people dressed in smock-like attire and gloves standing-by. Oh sorry, didn’t mean to burst your bubble.
So, my point is this. Procter & Gamble had this great story line in mind (and yes, it really makes its point) – oil spills are bad for the environment, just look at these animals – but they took these perfectly clean animals and covered them in some black liquidy substance, for the sake of the commercial?! How is that right? And they’re cleaning them with dish soap?
You’d think that big brand names would know the best way to leverage technology, right?
Here’s the deal – Procter & Gamble (P&G) has decided to join the masses of retailers by opening an online store. They say that they’re just conducting research on online shopping, but really…can we really believe that?
On the one hand, yes, maybe they are just conducting research, but can’t they utilize their current distributors’ sites to do that? If all big branded consumer product makers took to selling their products on their own sites..just think of the damage to wholesalers, distributors, and retailers… P&G, really, now is not the time for this…