Nobody knows the #newfaceofdad better than @LOD @jimhigley @blurb @whithonea @daddyclay & @didacticpirate Check their blogs for more info!
— Philips Norelco (@shaveexperts) June 12, 2012
It's a Twitter dadblogger grouphug tonight, fellas! Give it up for Phillips Norelco and The New Face Of Dad. And it looks like most everyone's shaved their heads for the YouTube viral video:
Nice hustle.
And an improvement from The Old Face Of Dad, which, as Bloggerfather has been reporting for months, was No Dad. And which he doesn't think will last much beyond the next shave. [updated via the comments]
Everyone knows I'm a regular party-pooper, but before we celebrate a marketing campaign, we should consider the company that stands behind the campaign and its dismal track record with dads. I wrote about it on my blog, and I hope you get a chance to read it and see exactly what made me poop on this party.
http://www.bloggerfather.com/2012/06/philips-norelco-iv-lost-hope.html
don't forget, though, Oren, that it's Father's Day, the two weeks of the year when consumer products companies can show their marketing love to dads--before going back ignoring them for the rest of the year.
In regard to the negative grumblings that some of the dad bloggers have been going on (and on) about: I know it's going to come across as self-serving, but I really think that complaining about the things that Philips hasn't done instead of supporting what they are trying to do is a step in the wrong direction.
The guys in this video, and the guys behind it, are straight from the trenches and have been at the forefront of Dad since blogging started (or their own entry into fatherhood, whichever came first). We were given an opportunity to showcase dads, bust stereotypes, and create positive brand engagement, and we ran with it. I've rarely been part of anything as powerful and positive in the online dad space, let alone the dad/brand space, as this experience. Thanks for posting it, Greg.
I don't know, I can see how it'd be more productive to consider Norelco's and Avent's approaches to dads separately, but I don't think there's anything wrong with calling out a company's marketing when you feel it's wrong or exclusionary.
All that doesn't detract, though, from the obvious authenticity of the NFOD campaign. It's real, and I think you guys did it well. And as an outreach/marketing strategy, I thought it was very well-crafted. But part of what's so smart about it is the way it laser targets not just dads, but dadbloggers. And it does it in a way that doesn't feel hokey or PR whore-y, or that seem like a defensive response to blog-based criticism. The influencers are now the influenced.
Whether this amounts to more than a Father's Day-style token outreach, like Pampers does clumsily every year, only time will tell. But I've been in this fray long enough not to expect blogroots criticism will have any effect on actual corporate structures [e.g. Disney Mom] or product designs [e.g. mom-optimized clippers] or deep-seated brand identities [e.g. Playtex, Avent]. So maybe at some point blowing off steam becomes pissing in the wind.