Marketing Case: Olay

Unit 3, Professor Das Narayandas, Market-Facing Functions: Facelift at Olay (A).

Before class, I cast my vote for "fewer and clearer." Don't sell the brand. Don't chase 19-year-olds' acne. Cut the overlapping claims on the shelf and tell the red jar's story clearly. Swap "anti-aging" for a line that doesn't frighten anyone.

After class, that vote still stands. It's been shifted one place over, though, and underneath it a layer showed up that I hadn't written about beforehand.

Here goes — enjoy:

Fewer, the red jar, science: these three are still standing

In class, Olay's problems first landed in three places. Too many SKUs; customers are confused, so cut, and keep the red jar. Innovation needs science underneath it. And one more line: be where your people are. Don't stand under the streetlight.

Before class, I'd written about the budget. In the case, about 80% of advertising spend was still on TV, with digital channels under 5%. The light is on TV because it's bright there, and because the organisation knows how to spend money there. Customers are no longer standing under that light.

If your positioning is a fog, you can still win the war. It just costs a lot more.

On the product line, the number given in class was a cut from about 150 to 80. The red jar is still the hero that gets kept. Nobody said the science was outdated.

Fewer, and clearer, didn't get moved in class.

Between the two groups, what you need is a bridge

Before class I wrote a hard line: a brand can't say "I understand you best" to a 19-year-old's acne and a 55-year-old's wrinkles at the same time. The money is in the over-35s. The US$8 million spent on Fresh Effects was a failed attempt to court the young.

Acne treatment for 19-year-olds still isn't this door.

What the professor wanted was something else. Build a bridge between the existing customers and the new ones; find common ground. The promise can change. The people you already have can't be dropped.

The existing customers are older women, and the old promise was called anti-aging. Once daughters no longer wanted to do what their mothers did, that story stopped. The world changed before our eyes.

New customers understand skincare far more deeply. The internet drove the cost of information right down, and brands lost control over customers. What I wrote down, sitting there, was: our generation grew up inside control, our brains like hardware soldered onto a control mechanism. The new generation didn't grow up that way. Korean brands came in through that loosening gap.

The woman in the research was called MI30 in class — a millennial around thirty. She wants to be treated as special. She still buys in mass channels.

So the way you segment customers has to change. The thing they share about their skin keeps both of them inside the same sentence.

You change the promise so that the people you have can still hear it, and the new ones can walk in.

My own reading: giving up on 19-year-olds holds up. Push 30-year-olds out as well, and the bridge breaks. The way in is the year she first takes a serious look at her own skin.

Under "anti-aging" lies a kind of condescension

Before class I wrote: the science isn't outdated, the language is. The replacement line I'd prepared was, "skin that looks young, so it won't give away your age."

In class, when the language was peeled back, what lay underneath was a relationship.

The word "anti-aging" makes people feel they are getting old. What it evokes is fear. An even older tone is: I know better than you, but I care about you, so I have to help you. The master and the one being looked after. The professor called it patronizing — a kindness delivered from above.

People who grew up in the digital world want equality.

Brands used to own consumers. Customers no longer recognise that ownership.

The approach discussed in class was to drop the word "anti-aging." The subtext of that phrase is: I'm getting old, something is wrong with me.

Marketing, product and packaging have to speak in the same tone. And knowing your customer isn't checking a dataset. Checking looks at numbers. Knowing means getting into her emotions and mindset. The moment a customer senses the slightest condescension, it's over.

My notes also mention implicit bias. Men and women both have it — the kind that, in the past, didn't take women's words seriously. I gave myself homework: take Mahzarin Banaji's test, and also look at myself — am I actually listening?

Condescension often starts with not listening.

If the relationship is still condescending, then even with a new slogan, the one speaking is still the master.

Function on the left, loyalty on the right

In class we used Kevin Lane Keller's brand pyramid and its four questions.

Who are you? This layer is salience: being remembered.

What are you? There are two ways to answer. Performance, the way BMW answers "how do I drive?" Imagery, which answers "who am I with?"

What about you? Performance leads to judgements; imagery leads to feelings.

What about you and me? At the top is resonance. Whether the relationship is still there, whether loyalty is still there — it all lives at this layer.

The left side is functional and rational; mass markets lean this way. The right side is emotional; premium brands lean that way.

You have to get to both in the end. The left is easier: if you really are better than the alternatives and stand up functionally, the road is open. The right is harder, and holds on to people better. That loyalty is reassurance, being able to sleep at night. The people buying it are often buying for their children, for their grandchildren.

Someone asked whether business customers, at least, are functional. The professor's answer was short: that's emotional too. What they want is safety, calm.

My own reading goes half a step further: function gets someone to buy the first time. Reassurance is what makes them stay, and want to hand it on to the next generation.

The jar, search and the counter say the same thing

Before class, my piece stopped at a multiple-choice question. What class added was how a promise becomes something you can touch.

She's searching for retinol. Competitors all use it. The way to stand out is Retinol 24: working around the clock, twenty-four hours. Those words on the jar should be printed as big as OLAY. Find out what she's looking for first, then decide what to print.

Texture is a promise too. The cream is whipped, not greasy. People in the organisation were brought face to face with customers.

Department stores used to have beauty advisers. Once they were gone, Olay Skin Advisor took over: one photo, one questionnaire, an answer to "what's right for me." It's a web page, not an app you have to download first. Meet her when she's ready.

Take search back into your own hands. Have direct contact with customers.

The digital moves didn't sprawl. What the professor wanted was a common language inside the organisation. Transparency is today's rule. What could once be hidden can't be hidden now.

One thing. Make the promise, then keep it.

Fewer means the jar, the search results and the counter all saying the same thing.

A brand is the one sentence you promise your customer

The professor asked us to tell the person next to us: what's your brand promise?

My neighbour, Sam Vu, said: Make sure you win. Employees win, partners win, you win financially, and you win emotionally too.

What I asked myself were two closer questions. What does Arcus42 promise? What do I promise?

Earlier I'd used a phrase to describe my relationship with clients: Reflective Ally, an ally side by side. The brand had also been placed somewhere very high. This class separated those two things. High can mean the resonance on the right side of Keller's pyramid. High can also mean "I know better than you." Clients can tell the difference.

Marketing, delivery and the tone in the meeting have to be the same relationship.

The moment a client senses the slightest condescension, even the loftiest brand line is void.

In Closing

"Fewer and clearer" — that vote still stands.

What got moved was slicing people up by age alone.

What I newly saw was the relationship. Brands no longer own customers. The promise can change. Condescension can't stay.