Give the new Pond's Institute website the once over and you'd be
forgiven for thinking you'd navigated yourself onto a beauty portal.
But since when did translating a brand onto the Web get this sexy?
According to OgilvyInteractive Asia-Pacific CEO Kent Wertime, since the
moment ecommerce took off and the consumer was put in the driving
seat.
Coining "Contextual Marketing" as the change in marketing tactics for
clients making the 'Net leap, Ogilvy has equated product, education and
information as the new marketing tenets.
"We've seen that clients are genuinely befuddled about how they can
begin to get on the 'Net in a relevant way," Mr Wertime told
CReATION.
"Contextual marketing crystalises the way in which clients are going to
have to reassess their communications to consumers when they get on the
'Net".
Featuring the product and its attributes on a website no longer cuts the
mustard - today's consumers are lifestyle, not product-driven,
junkies.
And a journey to Pond's Institute website (www.pondsinstitute-hk.com)
shows the site's key draws - funky graphics and consumer-centric
customisation/personalisation.
But products are only a fraction of the offering, with areas such as
Your Skin, Skinformation, and Let's Talk, a chatroom for users to
contact celebrities online.
"It was very important for the site to be totally on-brand," said
Unilever Hong Kong marketing controller, Helen Chow.
"Both the website and (real-world) counters reflect the Pond's values of
an honest approach to beauty".
According to Mr Wertime, for many OgilvyInteractive clients launching
Web-ward, being willing and able to address a wider range of topics
outside the brand alone is essential.
"But, again, they need to be prepared to understand more about what the
context (of the brand) is.
"If you go back over the last 40 years, product marketing has been about
the soup in the can or the brand image around the can - everything under
the sun was done to improve soup sales with new ingredients, secret
ingredients, all natural ingredients," he said.
This time, the 'Net is ringing the changes, throwing open extra brand
dimensions, and in the mindset of contextual marketing, soup becomes
more than just soup - it's about family nutrition; likewise, babies'
nappies are more than just nappies - they are synonymous with
parenting.
"The 'Net has provided a way of inculcating a depth of consumer
understanding in a way that, frankly, other forms of marketing and
communication weren't able to do in a mass sense," Mr Wertime said.
Once on the Web, the context of a product within a richer, broader,
lifestyle framework is the key to a consumer's heart - and 'vortal' is
the latest buzzword.
"In the context of the Internet, people are used to portals; however,
the goal of a lot of our clients is not to develop a portal per se, but
a vortal - vertical portals featuring everything about a particular
subject," said Mr Wertime.
While FMCG companies such as Unilever are largely leading the contextual
marketing revolution, the Web has forced them to change die-hard
marketing habits.
"Today, they have to be about product and service and this seems strange
for an FMCG, because they'll say 'what I'm selling is a product that
sits on a shelf'. Increasingly in the wireless world, you're going to
see that all companies have to have more of a service element to their
brands."
Taking Coca-Cola Europe's lead for easier location of its products on
the Web - even going so far as having WAP-enabled vending machines which
use wireless virtual credit as payment - Mr Wertime remains pragmatic:
"The 'Net is an exciting opportunity for marketers but it's also a
demanding new space. It's not something you should walk into lightly,
without understanding what consumers really want."
