L’Oreal Vichy France
Heeding to the 2005 data on the multitude of corporations (45% of top 1000 North American companies) using official blogs, it was natural for L’Oreal Vishy to include blogging as a part of their marketing mix to promote their anti-aging products. For this they sought the outsourced services of Euro RSCG 4D, a newbie in advertising. Vishy wanted to get closer to the customer at the point-of-sale, which was, in many cases, the Internet. The fake profile of Claire, a lady concerned about aging affecting her self-confidence and performance, which was put on the blog, was immediately condemned by the Internet community.
It is worth mentioning that there are no written rules (there are disclaimers though!) dictating what one can do or refrain from in his blog. As long as it is a personal blog with limited popularity (measurable by click-rates), the ethical quality of text can be compromised. But when it represents an organisation, which is quite evident in the L’Oreal Vishy case (filtering of positive comments, careful design of speech), the real blogger should act responsibly. The company tried to transfer directly the virtues of traditional media to a much more interactive world of Internet dynamism, thus blotting out the transparency, individual testimony and free interactions, the three most desirable characteristics of any blog (http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/06/case_study_the_.html). This questioned the very purpose of the blog (and bloggers’ rights?).
On 20th May 2005, following the apologetic comment by Delphine, product manager of Vichy’s French subsidiary, the blog was transformed into a common arena for people interested in skin-care to express their opinions or grievances on products. Vishy customers as well as prospects could comment on not only Vishy but also compare its competitors and substitutes. The decision to continue the blog was not only bold but also appropriate. No tool for mass communication can provide such interactivity. The company benefited from the feedback given by customers or prospects to consider product improvements and gauge the success of customer satisfaction. Remember that sales revenues might not always subjectively express satisfaction quotients.
The blog in its new avatar reincarnated itself as a tool for implementing a co-creational business model for product development. But the question still remains whether the company listened to what the customer had to say. L’Oreal dedicated a team of skilled personnel from different functions within the company to counter the 24×7 nature of the blog. When a company makes such a decision, the benefits can be manifold:
- Improvement of brand loyalty through transparency
- Permeation of a feeling of involvement in product-development within the customer-base
- Attraction of prospects who appreciate the company’s efforts to spread awareness through Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on skin-care, or those pertaining to a specific product
- Cost benefit from marketing (blogging is cheaper and simpler compared to traditional methods of publishing) is greater, when it overshadows the operational costs (including the implicit cost of time) of the monitoring team answering the concerns raised.
Hence, this is an an exemplary case of crisis management, studied across top b-schools in the world.
Quick Gyana: The L’Oreal Vishy Blog no longer exists, try clicking on www.journaldemapeau.fr and they redirect you to http://www.vichyconsult.fr.
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