CORONA-19 Marketing Lessons From Procter & Gamble In The Great Depression…

Around 1928 radio broadcasting become deregulated in the USA.

What this meant was that commercial players could enter the broadcast space.

About a year later, in 1929 the US stock market crashed which put Wall Street into panic!

Sound close to home!?

A year later, in 1930, Procter & Gamble, the personal health brand, then known particularly for soap, saw consumer uptake in radio consumption and P&G started to produce and sponsor radio programmes.

What they knew was America housewives were at home and listening to the radio to while they were doing housework.

Not the housewives doing housework part, but the rest sound close to home?!

These radio programs where melodramatic audible episodes that appealed to that demographic.

Because of the content type, they were referred to as “operas”.

You know, melodramatic…

Over the next few years, consumers stopped spending, investment and production declined and employment dropped.

4 years after the Wall Street crash, 5 million Americans were unemployed.

The Great Depression started.

Through this decline, more and more people were listening to the radio and radio operas.

And although a soap company sponsored them for 3 years prior, the brand association was so strong (particularly with Proctor & Gamble sub-brands Oxydol), that these audio operas were dubbed “soap operas”.

Now you know ;-)

In a declining economic world, P&G was able to build brand salience on a new and emerging media channel.

I have been playing in the TikTok sandpit for a little while now.

If you haven’t heard of TikTok, it is the fastest growing, music based, social platform you have never heard of!

At time of writing, it has 800 million monthly active users.

For comparison, Facebook has 2.37 billion.

TikTok is only 3x smaller than Facebook by monthly users, yet you likely have never heard of it.

This dynamic means there is a f-load of users and not much content.

That combination means if you post any half ghetto content on TikTok, you can easily get 100,000+ views of your content.

I did it (https://www.tiktok.com/@orrenhimself/video/6782132370628693253)

And I have few other videos around 20,000 and 10,000 views too.

Lots of people will say it’s for 13-year-olds, yet my channel is now mostly marketing & sales content — two of those are marketing related (https://www.tiktok.com/@orrenhimself/video/6783254841092345094 and https://www.tiktok.com/@orrenhimself/video/6789404955796114694)

This kind of organic reach is going to go away, very, very quickly.

So, my first suggestion is get on TikTok ASAP and take advantage of it while you can.

But when it dries up, (which it will — recall how Facebook organic reach dried up? Recall how Instagram organic reach dried up also?) you have two options:

1. Pay TikTok to place your Ads in the feed; or
2. Pay gatekeepers on TikTok to do shoutouts for you; or
3. A combination of both…

The former is going to be way more expensive than the latter.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a story for you…

Over the last year a friend of mine, Elliot has been sharing his original music with me (https://www.facebook.com/orren.himself/posts/10155980174296269)

I really like what he does so I have been giving him ideas of how to get the name out there.

Over the last few months, I helped him negotiate a shoutout from a TikTok gatekeeper with 500,000 followers (https://www.tiktok.com/@itspeytonbabyy)

In the first 12 hours, that video got 29,100 views (https://www.tiktok.com/@itspeytonbabyy/video/6808269488174157061)

And this will continue to rise over the coming days!

You know how much it cost them?

US$100.

Let me put that into perspective for you…

There are many digital channels that offer paid ad products to get your brand (and band) more awareness:

1. Blog ads;
2. Twitter Ads;
3. LinkedIn Ads;
4. Facebook Ads;
5. Instagram Ads;
6. Messenger Ads;
7. Facebook Audience Network Ads;
8. YouTube Ads;
9. Reddit Ads;
10. Quora Ads;
11. Stitcher Podcast Ads;
12. Spotify Podcast Ads;
13. Overcast FM Podcast Ads;
14. Radio Public Podcast Ads;
15. Google Ads;
16. Reddit Ads;
17. Google Ads;
18. Google Display Network Ads;
19. Bings Ads;
20. Yahoo! & Tumblr Ads;
21. Taboola Content Ads;
22. Outbrain Content Ads;
23. AdRoll Remarketing Ads;
24. Ad nauseum (see what I did there ;-) )…

A lot of these channels charge per 1,000 impressions, or Cost Per iMpressions (CPMs).

Now, it is hard to get accurate statistics on average CPMs.

This is for a few reasons — it changes based on:

• Targeting criteria;
• The number of competitors;
• Volume of content on the channel;
• How mature the channel is;
• And many, many more…

However, HubSpot (https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4350015/AdStage%20Q2%202018%20Paid%20Media%20Benchmark%20Report.pdf) published the following statistics from 2018 that outlines average CPMs for some of those digital channels.

Here they are in in descending order of CPM:

• Google Ads: $114.00 CPMs;
• Bing Ads: $89.94 CPMs;
• YouTube Ads $11.43 CPMs;
• Facebook Ads: $9.82 CPMs;
• Instagram Ads: $8.60 CPMs;
• Messenger Ads: $7.34 CPMs;
• LinkedIn Ads: $7.13 CPMs;
• Twitter Ads: $7.09 CPMs;
• Facebook Audience Network Ads: $4.13 CPMs; and
• Google Display Ads: $2.25 CPMs.

Now remember these CPMs are partial-frame ad spots.

In other words, they are not full screen pop-up ads, so all of those ad products don’t get 100% saturation of eyeballs.

Now, if you can find multiple channel who have your identical ideal audience, it makes sense pay the lowest price CPM price.

If you can find a gatekeeper (aka “Influencer”) who sits on top of the channel, who also has your identical ideal audience, and you can pay them equal or a lower CPM price, it also makes sense because they have built brand equity and trust with their audience.

Going after a new cold audience on an ad platform doesn’t afford you that, by default — a cold audience isn’t aware of your brand yet.

TikTok has yet to establish an open ad platform or benchmark for CPMs.

What this means is the attention is under-priced compared to other ad channels and this includes gatekeepers (aka “Influencers”) on TikTok.

If you recall back to Elliot, in the first 12 hours his CPMs were $3.44 and that number is only going to go down as it gathers more-and-more views.

EDIT: His CPMs are $1.11 and still dropping.

Another advantage is that any TikTok content is automatically a full-frame ad spot and they stay up perpetually, which only sponsors content enjoys.

Consumer are forced to view the ad and the videos stay up perpetually unless every other kinds of CPM ads.

This is called Pay Per View (PPV) and is what StumbleUpon (now defunct) Ads used to offer.

It was amazing and I built an entire e-comm business off it.

So, if you’re jaw hasn’t dropped at the USD$100 price, I don’t know what will make it drop!

Covid-19 related cancellation of in-person meet-ups means many musicians and DJs are forced out of work.

I know impression (or music views) are not gigs, but if you know anything about the sales process, you’ll know all other ways to monetise something, including gigs stems from awareness:

1. Attention;
2. Interest;
3. Desire; and
4. Action.

AIDA — there are many variations, but it’s a time-tested marketing formula from o Elias St. Elmo Lewis.

Here is how you take advantage of this opportunity before it gets expensive:

1. Download and sign up to TikTok;
2. Fill out your bio, including trackable bio link;
3. Upload your songs to TikTok;
4. Search hashtags related to or songs or similar to your music;
5. Reach out to the top content producers for those hashtags and song;
6. Ask if they do shoutouts;
7. Negotiate a shoutout deal; and
8. Let the content producer create and publish the video and song.

Do you know who else can take advantage of this?

Any brand that has a product that appeals to a global, pop-culture audience.