You will face a mountain of slippery challenges in your transition from traditional to online advertising. P&G is not an exception.

P&G has not completely figured out how to adapt to the social advertising space. As a highly entrenched mass media advertising giant, it is fundamentally so invested in traditional advertising that shifting to social appears unlikely, even unwanted. But we have to give P&G credit where credit is due. Even though there were no clear answers on how to market their product lines, they went ahead and joined in.

Contrary to expectations, P&G has taken a lot of risks entering social advertising and not all of that has paid off. However, they did not let uncertainty scare them off, and in many small and large ways, it’s been paying off. Today, we let P&G teach us how to advertise online, using techniques any company can use, irregardless of how big or small they are or what products they have.

1. The old approach is no longer as effective on a fundamental level, but it still works.

First things first, even if traditional advertising is being subverted by online, P&G was prudent to continue to invest in it. This is not a catch-22. Even if mass media is no longer as pervasive as it was before, it still has a giant footprint in the world. People still buy newspapers, watch TV shows, go to the movies and even listen to the radio. And as long as they have a dominant position in these media, they will have supreme reach among the people who use them, especially among those who cannot afford or have not adapted to new media. Having said that…

2. Even if you had not figured it all out, It’s important to be in the advertising space, stay on top of the trends.

P&G did not have a clear cut marketing strategy for Tide on Facebook or YouTube when they put up a presence on them. In fact, most of their products, which are domestic household items. However, they knew they could not be left behind in this space, and so even if they were taking baby steps, they went it anyway.

This is a really gutsy move on their part. It shows that they were willing to take risks and make mistakes. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say they were in that exact same position over 100 years ago, when radio was still in its infancy and P&G took that bold step to double down on it and sponsor the first major radio programs to get their name out.

3. If you are lucky enough to have a viral, you should leverage it.

P&G had two opportunities to utilize a viral, and in both cases they ran with it with different results.

For Tide, they were made the subject of a satirical fake news article by the Onion. Said article was, ironically, making fun of the idea of giant corporations making viral videos to stay relevant. It would have been the usual popular article for the week, except P&G actually made the video they described.

The video did not go full-blown viral, but it did get the attention of the social media community. They were lauded for being aware of how to react appropriately to such awkward situations.

Far more successful was their Old Spice campaign. Initially intended to be a funny 30 second spot, it took off online when it was found by the online underground on YouTube.

And to P&G’s credit, they were able to leverage its success even better than the Tide video. They developed a focused, highly engaged social media strategy, and took unconventional steps like making a presence on 4chan.

4. Some kinds of offline campaigns can be easily be carried over online.

Video spots are the easiest to carry over. Its no problem taking a 30 second or one minute spot commercial to upload on YouTube. Even if you do not sign up to advertise on YouTube itself, just having that video in your channel and available to embed are already vital steps.

Getting back to Old Spice, they came up with a clever way to duplicate the viral nature of the initial commercial. They sourced questions for Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa via Twitter for him to answer with more minute long videos on YouTube.

Inspirational campaigns have a very high potential to go viral, especially if advertisers capture the sentiment of the time. For example, the Tide YouTube channel is featuring US Olympics team athlete Sarah Hammer. Their ‘Red, White and Blue’ campaign was engineered to garner support for Sarah, and by extension the entire US Team, by highlighting her as a patriot. This sort of campaign was a fixture for every Olympics year after year, but bringing that campaign online made it easier to garner, even measure that support.

Subsequently, P&G saw sales rise for their deodorant Secret as a consequence of the success of their ‘Mean Stinks’ campaign. Via word of mouth, people discovered this antibullying campaign which had people flocking to their Facebook page to relate their bullying experiences, and even getting some of those former bullies to post apology videos on their page. Social responsibility campaigns, like inspirational ones, make people feel good when they participate in them, and so they have better chances of success when you bring them to social.

5. If you do not know what to do, social listening is a good place to start.

P&G clearly utilized social listening in reaction to the Tide and Old Spice virals. However, they first got their taste of a successful online campaign in 2010 with Pepto-Bismol, urging people to ‘Celebrate Life’.

‘Celebrate Life’ was conceived thanks to social listening, when P&G discovered people talking about using Pepto-Bismol online, particularly to help with indigestion and hangovers after partying too hard. Throughout 2011, it helped raise sales of Pepto-Bismol back up, and that was when they discovered it was worth investing in online advertising.

6. Find a way to target your niche.

P&G is now in a better place than before to market their core, ‘non-social’ brands online. P&G’s core market finally found a niche social network for themselves with Pinterest, and so they moved quickly to start a ‘Thank You Mum’ board. Their approach with it is classy and sincere, with a separate board disclosing which brands they intend to promote with it.

 What are your challenges in your transition from traditional to online advertising?