So, fun and games in the world of South African marketing. Over the past week we’ve watched the unfolding of the buzz marketing campaign familiarly known as The National Skirt Extension Project, and yesterday I believe all was revealed in a TV ad, where we were told by Mrs Balls Chutney, why as consumers “If something doesn’t need changing, why change it?”

Being an advocate for innovative buzz marketing campaigns, I find it difficult to criticise the agency behind this for going out on a limb. So kudo’s to you.

However, herewith questions and thoughts:

Silly questions, but worth asking:

Why pick a contentious subject? We live in a diverse society where people take offence so easily, and where you are likely to find that consumers loyal to the brand are (on assumption) likely to be fairly conservative. Is this not likely to generate ‘distaste’ so to speak toward your brand?

Was this not bad timing perhaps? Or planned as such? IMO not such a great idea to flight a campaign where anything eluding to a governmental/political mandate could be negatively perceived.

More serious questions:

What was the objective of the campaign? If it was to create conversation about your brand, then congratulations, this is my 2cents to “the conversation” but then I’m curious as to what model you have in place to measure the outcome.

Are you working on a conversation model? In which case the objective would not just be to cause discussion, but rather determine how much money Mrs Balls made each time the conversation reached a new person. I’d love to see a case study as a result of this proving my guess wrong that this campaign won’t increase sales of product, unless some bright spark in the team thought to integrate it with NSEP creative continued on POS offering a cheeky short-skirt discount. (Just a thought)

Are you working off sentiment and tone, because again IMO, from the sounds of things you are going to have (unless they can see the lighter side of it) a large existing or potential consumer base who you have embarrassed, and this may negatively influence their purchasing behaviour.

Are you measuring the effectiveness of this campaign solely on a quantitative basis, i.e. visits to the website, blog posts and calls – where the destination and feedback is not about Mrs Balls but rather about NSEP. Its the subsequent tone of blog posts, searches for product info that now need to be tracked and measured. In essence you’ve created a buzz marketing campaign for NSEP and not for Mrs Balls, and unless I just haven’t seen other supporting media to explain the campaign, and because I didn’t see the TV ad, I might never have known that this is for Mrs Balls, so look forward to what else you have planned to explain to the general non-marketing public.

Ok, so times are tight we know this so again kudo’s to you for creating content for a relatively cheap campaign/tv ad (in creative terms) supported by a website, newspaper and other media. I would absolutely love to know what the ROI is in relation to product sales.

If your objective was purely brand building (again I reiterate that I support WOM, and any attempt to take risks) then I really battle to see the link between lengthening skirts and Mrs Balls, I realise you are saying that the brand doesn’t need changing, but if you claim to be “Uncompromised since 18voetsak” then why would you risk compromising the brand through your marketing efforts?

Just curious that’s all…