Going Potty for Facebook: How a Toilet Paper Brand Won Social. My cynicism derives more from the low-quality content and threadbare strategies I see every day in my newsfeed or, more often, in groups dedicated to ridiculing those brands that merely chase “likes” and (**cough**) “engagement.” There’s a PowerPoint slide that makes it into most of my workshops: “A Facebook page isn’t a content marketing strategy in exactly the same way that a telephone isn’t a sales strategy.” This slide is my cue to rant about how so many brands seem to be on Facebook simply because it’s there or because everyone else is. “After all,” I would conclude, “why should a toilet paper brand be on Facebook? Selpak cleaned up at the International Business Awards in 2015, however, winning gold for Best Facebook fan page as well as silver for both Communications Campaign of the Year and Branded Content Campaign of the Year. At the end of the day there are lots of options to choose from,” says Ipek Alkan, engagement manager at ADBA, the Turkish marketing agency behind Selpak’s award-winning Facebook strategy. “We knew that we should target women because they are the decision-makers in (these) households,” Alkan says. These women now use Facebook as a source of information and socializing platform. So, we chose the platform where they were already living.” They knew why the brand should be on Facebook, but there still needed to be a clear reason for those Gen Y and Z women to care about a Facebook page about toilet paper. The agency needed to bring in the potty experts; to that end, it partnered with child psychologists from the Bengi Semerci Institute. It’s a content marketing lesson on how to target a niche customer problem and then totally own that space with valuable content.
Regular readers know I can be a tad disparaging of a lot of Facebook marketing. It’s not that Facebook is lacking as a content platform – far from it. My cynicism derives more from the low-quality content and threadbare strategies I see every day in my newsfeed or, more often, in groups dedicated to ridiculing those brands that merely chase “likes” and (**cough**) “engagement.”
There’s a PowerPoint slide that makes it into most of my workshops: “A Facebook page isn’t a content marketing strategy in exactly the same way that a telephone isn’t a sales strategy.”
This slide is my cue to rant about how so many brands seem to be on Facebook simply because it’s there or because everyone else is. Car insurance companies ask people to like a post if they’re happy it’s a long weekend. Airlines ask insultingly simple “brainteasers” (“Bet you can’t guess this popular destination!” accompanied by a photo of Big Ben and the clue L_N_O_). Toilet paper brands prefer to share funny memes instead of anything relevant to either their product or their potential customers.
“After all,” I would conclude, “why should a toilet paper brand be on Facebook? Who hits ‘like’ on their favorite brand of toilet paper for their whole network to see? Who’s even thinking about toilet paper when connecting with friends and family in social?” Cue laughter, nods of agreement and on to the next slide – usually a rant about corporate language and why the word “solution” should be banned from the marketer’s lexicon.
Except I now need to revise my ridicule because Selpak – a leading brand in the Turkish tissue paper industry (as they discretely prefer to describe it) – recently became one of my favorite examples of how to use Facebook in content marketing.
A finalist in the Facebook distribution category of the 2016 Content Marketing Awards, Selpak was narrowly pipped to the post by Arby’s. Selpak cleaned up at the International Business Awards in 2015, however, winning gold for Best Facebook fan page as well as silver for both Communications Campaign of the Year and Branded Content Campaign of the Year.
Here’s why.
Flushed away
How much do you really care about – or even notice – the pretty patterns embossed onto your toilet paper when you’re ripping off a couple of sheets to wipe where this sentence will politely choose not to follow? As long as it’s not that cheap toilet paper I remember from primary school (you know the stuff, about as absorbent as tinfoil and nearly as scratchy), we’re probably not thinking about which brand we prefer when we sit on the throne.
Despite the many ways brands try to differentiate their products – bigger sheets, nicer fragrances, prettier patterns – toilet paper is pretty much a commodity. And just about the…
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