"Dawn Dishes it Out"

When researching successful PR case studies, I came across one carried out by Procter & Gamble that caught my attention. I was intrigued because they managed to take an everyday household product, Dawn dishwashing liquid, and turn it into a newsworthy item. Here is how it unfolded:

-2003, Dawn dishwashing liquid was losing out to its competitors who claimed to offer more soap for less money. However, consumers were merely uninformed, because Dawn claims that just one 25 ounce bottle can clean over 10,000 dishes.
-P&G hired Marina Maher Communications to design a communications campaign to get the message out clearly, that "just a little Dawn cleans a lot of dishes." And so they created the "Dawn Dishes it Out" campaign.
-The campaign consisted of a massive eating event proving that just one 25 ounce bottle of Dawn can clean over 10,000 dishes, Hispanic market location and Hispanic celebrity (to appeal to their secondary target audience of Hispanics), "wow" visual for media coverage, and celebrity spokesperson, Robbie Knievel.
-1,685 people showed up to the main event where they started with breakfast, followed by a "wash-a-thon" with 300 washers, dryers, runners and stackers. DJ's and other celebrity guests provided entertainment. For the finale they stacked 10,000 clean plates for Knievel to jump over, and it was all captured for the TV commercial

The campaign succeeded almost every goal they projected for the event, including over 575 TV stories spotlighting Dawn, a story run by the L.A. Times and the photo of Knievel's jump becoming one of the most popular photos on yahoo.com. Dawn also saw ten percent dollar share and eight percent volume share increase in Dawn sales compared to a year ago. I think this is a great example of a case study that really got creative and followed through with their research. They transformed dishwashing soap from a low-interest category into a news spectacle.

For more information on the Dawn case study and other case studies go to: http://www.prfirms.org/resources/case_studies/Integrated_Marketing/2006/Dawn1.asp