P&G’s ‘Have You Tried This Yet?’ Embraces Social Media

The most recent version of Procter & Gamble’s highly successful “Have You Tried This Yet?” product campaign debuted this week with a one-day event in New York featuring celebrity pitchwoman Kari Byron of “Mythbusters” TV fame, and a host of recently released items. Visitors could view demonstrations of products from such iconic brands as Crest, Clairol, Bounty, Tide and Bounce, all to a DJ-provided beat.

Last year, the campaign debuted with the establishment of temporary pop-up stores in various cities, but for 2011, the focus is more on social media, according to Cincinnati-based P&G. The company has seen “quite of lot” of online interest since it developed its online presence through the www.pgtryit.com sampler site, according to P&G spokeswoman Crystal Harrell. She noted that the site has experienced 750,000 hits, with 80 percent of visitors requesting product coupons. Further, the Oct. 30 edition of the company’s Brand Saver coupon book, which highlights the “Have You Tried This Yet?” campaign, offers a total of $102 in savings, Harrell said.

Getting consumers excited and engaged in cyberspace means enlisting the services of such Internet opinion makers as bloggers, notes Steve Sholtes, P&G’s industry affairs manager. He said that the campaign, which spotlights products rolled out in the past six to 18 months that consumers may not have had a chance to sample, was a “great success last year.” In fact, he added, some retailers saw as much as 10 percent growth at the category level, through such strategies as tie-in advertising using the campaign’s distinctive graphics.

What “Have You Tried This Yet?” champions is product innovation, which Sholtes describes as the “lifeblood” of center store, as well as a “key tenet” of P&G in particular, giving shoppers new reasons to go to the store. Sholtes was confident that this year’s campaign would build on last year’s success, since it remains a “winning idea,” and he counted on continued support from retailers. The campaign provides a “great opportunity” to educate consumers on P&G products’ quality and value, he added.

Expanding the campaign’s presence on Internet “opens up a whole new avenue” to reach the consumer, Sholtes noted, since the Web allows “a deeper dive” into product information, as well as enabling consumers to share impressions and make recommendations.