Social media potty talk
By bo McDonald
What brand of toilet paper do you buy? Do you care? Probably not so much. So if you’re a toilet paper company, how do you get noticed? Financial institutions and toilet paper companies aren’t very different in the fact that we’re typically looked at as commodities. Whoever will pay the most on savings, charge the least on fees, and offer the lowest interest rates on loans is where people end up. There’s no loyalty. The same goes for toilet paper for most people. Whatever is the cheapest one on the shelf that doesn’t look like it will feel like rubbing mulch in those sensitive places is the one we pick.
Charmin has an idea. Why not engage people in their use of toilet paper. Charmin is engaging bathroom users to “tweet from the seat.” Tweets from Charmin sound something like this:
“So, we had a lot of coffee and oatmeal for breakfast this morning. Any guesses as to what time we’ll #tweetfromtheseat?”
Creepy. Bizarre. But different. Depending on the age of the person reading this post, and personal preference, you’ll have different thoughts on this campaign from Charmin. The target audience is obvious, a younger generation that very well may be open to the funny overshare tweets that #tweetfromtheseat may inspire.
The point of this post is not to give Charmin thumbs up or thumbs down on the campaign, though we at YMC do have our own thoughts on the promotion. The point is to show that if a commodity such as toilet paper can break through the noisy clutter and de-commoditize themselves, so can financial institutions. It’s not about cheap toilet paper or low rates; it’s about putting a personality to your brand. However as a financial institution, you may want come up with a different idea than Charmin and stay away from potty talk on social media.
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