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Procter & Gamble?s Tampax engages teenage girls on mobile

Procter & Gamble is using mobile to strike down young girls? prejudices about tampons and educate them about the benefits of its Tampax brand.

P&G tapped mobile marketing agency Phonevalley and media planning company Starcom MediaVest Group for the launch of the Tampax mobile campaign to reach girls ages 13-17 in France. It supports a Web campaign launched to promote the character of ?Max the Tampax? and create a community around him on the Skyrock.com Web site.

?P&G?s Tampax believes it is strategic to reassure young girls during their first periods on their most personal device,? said Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phonevalley and head of mobile at Publicis Groupe, Paris. ?Communicating with teens on mobile is highly relevant because teens are three times more receptive to mobile advertising, according to Nielsen research.

?The campaign was designed to reach girls ages 13-17, who spend a large amount of time on their mobile,? he said. ?Tampax intends to build up strong relationships with this particular segment and engage them with its product line.?

Both Phonevalley and Starcom are subsidiaries of Publicis Groupe.

Phonevalley?s mobile marketing offerings span mobile media planning and buying, strategic consultancy and mobile interactive services such as the creation of mobile Internet sites, mobile applications, branded content and promotions.

In addition to P&G, its clients include General Motors, Coca-Cola, Puma and Nestlé.

French girls love mobile
Phonevalley designed a quirky mobile site to support the ?Max le Tampax? campaign on the Web, which was set up by Cubing.

Most teenage girls do not feel comfortable with their first periods and they need intimacy and the greatest secrecy on this delicate subject.

Since mobile is the most personal and interactive media, it perfectly meets these expectations.

Indeed, mobile lets young girls watch Tampax-branded videos featuring advice from ?Max le Tampax? whenever they want.

Video clips are being broadcast live from the ?Tampax Academy? on Dailymotion Mobile. The site is available at http://m-tampax.fr.

The mobile site also offers to send free samples by mail. Young mobile users have the opportunity to download a Java game inspired from bricks breakout games such as Brick Breaker and Arkanoid.

The three best scores are displayed live on the mobile site and teenage girls with the highest scores can take part in a competition to win a mobile phone.

In order to take advantage of viral marketing and of the propensity of girls aged 13-17 to share tips and advice, Phonevalley added a function that lets teenagers send the mobile site?s URL to their friends via SMS.

To drive traffic to the site, Phonevalley, in partnership with cable television and communications provider Mediacom, designed a media plan on mobile portals and social networks with the highest affinity with the target audience.

Tampax banner ads appeared on mobile sites such as Dailymotion, Skyrock, Windows Live and MSN, Closer and Allociné.

There were three different versions: one focusing on the videos of ?Max,? the second about the free samples and the third one was promoting the Java game.

Each banner led users to the Tampax mobile site.

?The challenge was to make girls feel comfortable with such a sensitive subject at this age,? Mr. Mars said. ?Mobile is vitally important for young girls?it is their most personal device and since their parents don?t have access to it, their intimacy and secrets are preserved.

?So we have designed a mobile campaign featuring humorous videos of the ?Max? funny character and a Java game with gifts to be won,? he said.