Recently I discovered the best toothbrush ever, the Colgate 360. Think all toothbrushes are alike? Think again. This thing rocks. It’s got the perfect hand shape and the ideal mouth feel, plus it gets your choppers - and everything else in there - feeling super clean. It has this cool, rubbery, sandpapery, velcro-like area to scrub your tongue and other mouth parts as you brush - but that sounds worse than it really is, trust me on this. It’s quite pleasant.
Why am I blogging about this? Because I’m excited about it. I discovered it by accident (mistakenly grabbed the husband’s toothbrush instead of mine - hey, it happens) and fell in love with it. I went right out to the store and got one of my own (they didn’t have purple but I can live with turquoise blue).
If you’re wondering what this has do with social media and PR, my blog’s usual sweet spot, here it comes. Once I figured out that I wanted to blog about this awesome toothbrush, I Tweeted about it. Instantly I got a response back from someone asking if I was talking about his favorite toothbrush (nope, different one). Apparently toothbrushes inspire deep emotions in quite a few people.
Then, I Googled the 360 and found that other bloggers had fallen in love with it too - although a few were less enthused (not to mention slightly off-color, though still amusing). Delving further into my findings, I even discovered a goofy little Youtube ad that explains this darn newfangled toothbrush and why I like it so much. Had I seen this TV spot while watching my usual shows, would it have gotten my attention or convinced me to buy a new toothbrush? Highly doubtful. But now that I’ve already fallen head over heels with the Colgate 360, I find it cute.
Bottom line, I have no stock or vested interest of any kind in Colgate or this toothbrush. In fact, I have stock in a major Colgate competitor! But I’m still blogging about the 360 because I liked it that much. This is the power of social media, folks - I am not the only person doing this. Every day, people are falling in love with brands, products, companies and causes. Every day, these people are blogging and Tweeting and creating videos and posting photos and being online brand advocates, brand ambassadors. These people love nothing more than generating excited, passionate, authentic, honest, credible word of mouth about the brands they like and feel good about.
So tell me, what are you doing about this phenomenon? Is your product or company - or at least your customer service - worthy of inspiring that much passion and devotion? And if so, are you making it easy for your consumers to share content about you? I had to “steal” this screen grab from Colgate. I’m hoping they won’t mind. Imagine if, instead, they had posted lots of pretty pictures of the 360 to Flickr and then linked to them from their site so that I could find and grab the one I like best. Note to CPG companies: make your websites blogger friendly - we like that.
I guess my only point here, aside from the fact that you may want to seriously consider the Colgate 360 next time your mouth is feeling less than fresh, is that social and consumer generated media are here to stay and you have every reason in the world to embrace them. Whatever your business, department or role, I’d bet there’s a way social media and web 2.0 can help you do your job better, build or enhance relationships with your customers, tap into fans and advocates you didn’t even know you had, and open the door to new relationships with prospects.
What do you have to lose?
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Gary Hunt // Oct 7, 2008 at 10:24 am
In an age of easy feedback, this is the point where many companies fall down. They have traditionally been geared toward making the sale, then troubleshooting. Handling a community of happy customers hasn’t been a consideration for most.
I’ve contacted companies I’ve been happy with and found a couple of them baffled at what to do next.
Another memorable example was Weber Grills (I LOVE mine). A few years ago, they made an effort to build a community by inviting customers to post photos and grilling techniques. But there was no follow-through, and no way for customers to contact each other. When Weber tried to solicit more involvement a year later, it was too late; they had lost the opportunity.
2 Lara Kretler // Oct 7, 2008 at 11:41 am
Gary, I completely agree. This is a huge opportunity for many if not most companies! The key is encouraging and facilitating two-way communication. Great example with Weber grills (I know my husband would love one!).
3 Sarah Z. // Oct 7, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Oh darn, I thought you’d say the Oral B toothbrush. That’s what I bought and I was impressed with the circular motion in addition to the up and down that the brush provides. I was misled.
You’ve convinced me–my next purchase will be Colgate!
Fun and illustrative blog Lara.
4 Biffybeans // Nov 15, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I liked my 360 as well. Quite a bit in fact. Until the day that I dropped the damn thing into the toilet bowl…. So now I need to get another one because my old back up brush just isn’t cutting it any more.
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