P&G: Engrave brand with Universal Human Affection

Nowadays, doing business internationally have never been easier before. But every international corporation will always face the same problem- their understanding of local culture is always one step slower compared to their local competitors. Additionally, it would be impossible to localized every campaign with local culture, and all the different cultures and heritages have so much subtle difference. Hence, unintentionally offending local customers became a destined result. But as one of the largest multi-national home supply players, P&G deal with the problem in a smart way: focusing the campaign on the most common human affection across races, cultures, and histories- the affection to Moms.

P&G Thank You Mom 2012 London Olympics

The video above is a campaign P&G brought out in 2012. The reason why I chose this campaign is that, I was totally shocked when I first watch this campaign as a kid. In this campaign, there are three family stories going on in parallel, depicting the life between mother and daughters in three different countries. As a Chinese myself, I can see myself and my own mother’s in that ads. The small game on the bus ride, the boiling breakfast prepared while I was asleep, I experienced them all in my childhood. And I am sure people from the story’s home country will feel so as well. As the story rolls, the hardworking support from the moms, eventually got the girls through the fields of Olympics and achieved their dream.

P&G Thank you Mom 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

And the storytelling ad became a series for every Olympics. And it all ends will a strong slogan Proud Sponsor of Moms.

So why is this a good ad?

Especially, it eliminates all the complicated part of marketing. It only focused on the greatest common ground among everyone. As a part of the Mammal family, we are by natural hold special affection with moms. In the greatest way, it both achieved the expected exposure and induce sharing. And it also avoided the risk of being misunderstood or even slandered over this campaign. And since the campaign demonstrated inclusive through showing multiple country story, the campaign itself is usable in multiple countries. And in turn in lowered the operational cost for the ads as well.

P&G Thank you Mom 2016 Rio Olympics