The crisis of Pampers’s diapers is a very typical issue
happened in fast consumer industry. There are couple of reasons cause the
customers’ dissatisfaction for Dry Max, including delayed announcement and the
rash issue. However, Pampers took some action to save the company’s reputation
ultimately. Here are some of my take aways:
·
Customer needs weigh much than the technology
needs
·
Social media plays an important role in people’s
lives and business
·
Competitors could pretend to be customers who preach
the real customers to attack your products
·
Public relation (PR) is significant to cover the
crisis
The article mentioned the Dry Max is a new product used a novel
technology. In real life, technology needs often conflict with customer needs.
This reminds me of my internship this summer in a hi-tech company. I had
several meetings with engineers; meanwhile, I collected feedback from
customers. The information I gathered from customers are contradict with the
opinions from engineers. Customers wanted the product to be simpler or easier
to be used while engineers preferred the more advanced product with higher
technology. Nevertheless, the customers are the group of people who consume and
pay for the products. Thus, how to meet the customers need is more important
than covering the technology issue.
Another reason cause the protest of Dry Max is because the
company delayed the announcement – even when there is an accident such as rash
happened to customers, they still denied the innovation. Because Pampers was disingenuous
at first, the customers were really pissed off. Due to the slipstreaming, one
of the customers used the Facebook to set up a community posting the negative
comment and find other customers who had the same experience. Social media such
as Facebook, Twitter, and Blog nowadays have a strong impact to the customers. If
Pampers could have taken advantage of e-marketing to promote their new products
in advance, they would not encounter with such protest.
Although the case does not mention about the competitors, I
am wondering whether the complaints are all from the customers or is there any
possibilities that the competitors also participated into the protest. It is essential
for Pampers to distinguish the complaints from competitors with the ones from their
real customers.
However, with those protest and complaints, Pampers
implement public relation (PR) to recover the loss. As a marketer, leaning how
to use PR to defuse crisis if critical. Pampers emphasized the importance of
protecting baby’s health and safety, so instead of arguing and defensing for
the company, Pampers sought treatment of rash for the parents and educated them.
This is a very clever strategy, because on one side, the customer felt the
company paid attention to the severe problem; on the other hand, Pampers successfully
protect its brand and reputation through PR.
In conclusion, in order to launch a new product to the
market, making a comprehensive marketing strategic plan is fatal. This plan
should not only include pre-launch plan, customer requirements and competitive
analysis, but also should contain the resolution for post-sale crisis. Also,
e-marketing cannot be overlooked during the marketing process, because it
connect customers with customers, and customers with sellers.
Reference: Paul Gillin, Attack of the Customers: The Pampers Dry Max Crisis
http://gillin.com/blog/2012/08/attack-of-the-customers-the-pampers-dry-max-crisis/
Crisis PR is a time sensitive job, however, unfortunately, companies always denied what happened at the first. The only result by doing this is infuriating customers and damage what images companies tried to build in past ten or hundred years. I think each company has to build a crisis analysis team and find out the reason and reaction as soon as the crisis begin.
ReplyDeleteI like the point you generate about competitors, and that also what I concerned. After all, we faced with a real world and cruel competition is everywhere.
I like your take away very much. It's comprehensive and professional.
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting that you and Nan both mentioned the probability of Pampers' competitors cheating as customers. Well, maybe. It's a valuable opportunity for the competitors to take advantage of P&G's fault.
However, coming events cast their shadows before. I view the most significant factor resulted in the crisis happening is P&G's careless management of social media. It is reasonable to ignore one customer's complain on the internet but there is no way to explain the ignorance of huge complains one after another. Vendors must do something to control the circumstance in hand. Otherwise, it will be a big mess later and are out of vendors' hands.
Another idea I couldn't agree more is that product must cater to customer need rather than technological need.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fool's errand to provide the product which sellers thought customers wanted but customers do not value at all! It is true that selling the product to customers and get their money out from their pockets is the key since the modern market is not a product-orientated market any more but customer-orientated!
Julia,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you always organize your blog. It’s a very well organized and well-through analysis.
I agree with your point on that competitors may take advantage of this crisis to against P&G. They may support complaints customers, like their pages, and post negative reviews. For me, these actions are definitely against business ethics. But frankly speaking, for P&G’s competitors, it’s truly a good opportunity for them to take over market share. Their ways to compete can be coming up with new marketing campaigns and more child-safety concerns PR strategy.