Social Media Exposes the Truth About a Woman’s Period
Richard Neill has been duped. After years of watching Bodyform commercials he was lead to believe that a woman’s period is a wonderful and liberating experience. These women are happy, seen frolicking, and full of joy. In his attempt to call out the feminine hygiene company on their Facebook Wall, the brand didn’t delete the post, nor did they ignore it.
Neil shared that his “lady changed from the loving, gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin.”
The response for Bodyform is a great example of how brands can step outside their comfort zone. The response is full of humor and shows a little moxy.
“We loved Richard’s wicked sense of humour. We are always grateful for input from our users, but his comment was particularly poignant. If Facebook had a “love” button, we’d have clicked it. But it doesn’t. So we’ve made Richard a video instead. Unfortunately Bodyform doesn’t have a CEO. But if it did she’d be called Caroline Williams. And she’d say this.”
The response was well executed in both style and substance, which likely didn’t come at a low cost. But it is probably safe to assume the coverage they received has made up for it.
As of today, there were over 85,000 likes on the Facebook Wall post. And with the coverage in social media channels, there were likely hundreds of thousands of free impressions for the company.
Surprise Richard. Women bleed every month, “like a crimson landslide” as the faux CEO put it. They also fart. Brilliant!
2 Comments
jbergblog
December 1, 2012I guess you learn something new every day… This is a fabulous way that social media can be used in a crunch situation for a company. I video can reach millions of people with one “click.” Companies need to be aware of comments made about them on various media outlets so that they can adjust quickly. In this example there Facebook account was working against them. Thousands of people saw that Richard tried to call out Bodyform on methods they used in commercials. Bodyform had a quick response and used the post to point out the obviousness of the commercials.
Comments like this are more potent than ever before because of the potential number of people that it can reach. Because of social media one on one communication is dwindling and conversations are becoming more public.
Dennis Jenders
January 7, 2013Jacob -
You nailed it. And they did it with such great production quality and humor. I fall in love with brands that can do this.
Thanks for the comment,
Dennis