Social TV Effort Is No Sweat for Clorox Bleach

Molly Steinkrauss – Associate Director, Marketing Communications / The Clorox Company

Following last year’s “Bleachable Moments” social TV effort success with ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” Clorox Bleach went at it again with extensions on Twitter, allowing fans to vote. Molly Steinkrauss, associate director of marketing communications at The Clorox Company, spoke with eMarketer’s Danielle Drolet about the effectiveness of social TV for consumer packaged goods brands.

eMarketer: What are the objectives of Clorox’s real-time social TV integration with “The Bachelorette” this year?

Molly Steinkrauss: The partnership overall is meant to drive relevance for Clorox Bleach among millennial consumers, leveraging the humor of life’s “bleachable moments.” “The Bachelorette” has some of the highest social engagement among viewers, making it a great environment to connect our brands with consumers.

While the overall premise of the partnership is similar to last season, we have amplified our social presence with extensions on Twitter allowing fans to vote, in addition to ABC.com and Viggle. Our increased activity on Twitter included relevant Promoted Posts for each show. The tweets either promoted the week’s Bleachable Moments or highlighted something fun that was playing out in the show.

For example, one week when the contestants had to take a lie detector test, we poked fun at the sweat stains they might get. Of course, we coupled that with a tip on how Clorox Liquid Bleach can solve that specific “sweat” Bleachable Moment.

eMarketer: What types of results have you seen?

Steinkrauss: The program is just a little more than halfway through, and we continue to see good results showing fans are engaging with the show and its content on multiple screens, validating the strategy to couple the show partnership with second-screen support like Viggle and Twitter. Our Twitter content, specifically, is seeing engagement on par with the Twitter benchmarks at around 4%. Meanwhile, our Viggle partnership continues to draw strong engagement with thousands of votes a week on the app alone.

eMarketer: What is Clorox’s approach to social TV?

Steinkrauss: For extending reach, we know nearly all consumers report to multitask while watching TV, with 16% reporting specifically that they are engaging on social media. Combining the impact of TV ad exposure and social media can therefore drive greater impact of our marketing efforts.

For amplification, we’re looking at our media decisions and partnerships from a 360-degree level, putting a focus on opportunities where social can help differentiate. In addition to amplifying or extending existing partners, we’re also exploring what other conversations are happening around TV topics and inserting ourselves in a fun way, such as some work we did for AMC’s “Breaking Bad” finale and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” premiere. We know fans are engaging on social while viewing, and we want to be there in a way that is fun and authentic.

“We see a lot of social engagement on ‘The Bachelorette’ during the actual show, while our ‘Breaking Bad’ finale conversation extended at least a week.”

For refining targets, we’re looking at social as a way to help us drive even more relevance among segments, whether it’s leveraging behavioral data to reach fans of certain programs or finding unique insights that can further inform future programming choices. We’ll also learn more and more about our consumers and how and what they engage with, which will provide insights for how we can refine our plans, from targeting to content to even larger ideas for our efforts.

As we approach social TV, we’re always looking to find the right intersection of our audience, scale of social engagement and ways our brands can credibly engage with relevant content on the various platforms.

eMarketer: What are the biggest trends or changes in social TV since this time last year?

Steinkrauss: The biggest trends we have experienced are the TV networks embracing the idea of social TV much more. For example, social calls to action are included in a significant amount of programs. And the social platforms are embracing the power of TV platforms and audiences, providing more impactful and meaningful advertising units.

In almost every meeting we’ve had this year, the networks discussed how their audience was engaging socially and what their strategy was to extend this interaction. It’s exciting to see the networks embrace the trend and partner on the ways we can extend programs and make our marketing efforts more impactful. Instead of fighting for more dollars, both platforms are finding a way to partner where each of them benefits, and then the consumer benefits.

eMarketer: What have you been learning about the typical social TV consumer?

Steinkrauss: While young or millennial consumers may have embraced social TV habits, we’re seeing that it’s much more broad-reaching, especially as mainstream shows include social calls to action in their programming.

Each audience and show has its own behavior. For example, we see a lot of social engagement on “The Bachelorette” during the actual show, while our “Breaking Bad” finale conversation extended at least a week.

eMarketer: How does the trend toward time-shifted/on-demand/binge-watching impacting social TV factor into Clorox’s advertising plans?

Steinkrauss: Social TV is all about engaged audiences who want to talk about the programs, and this likely means greater live viewing. It’s the modern day equivalent of the water cooler effect.

This definitely affects how we plan and budget for opportunities, and it pushes the industry to move away from annual planning to weekly planning or daily planning, and away from daypart planning or even channel planning to planning moments.

Courtesy of eMarketer