Angel Soft Seeks Hard Edge on Web

The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2005, by Cristopher Lawton

Angel Soft bath tissue is taking toilet humor to the Web.

While that sounds a lot like bringing coals to Newcastle, Georgia-Pacific, which makes Angel Soft, hopes to follow in the cyber-footsteps of such marketers as American Express, BMW and Burger King with an edgy Internet campaign designed to make the brand stand out in its crowded category.

But as more marketers use the Internet to create buzz, brand experts say breaking through the clutter will be a challenge, especially for a bath-tissue brand that lacks the glamour of a flashy sports car or a celebrity spokesman.

"We wanted to connect to our consumers in an unexpected, memorable way," says Jill Mattos, category vice president for tissue at Georgia-Pacific. She says the objective is to create word-of-mouth buzz by people passing around the spots to their friends.

The campaign, created by Omnicom Group's DDB New York and appropriately titled "Bathroom Moments," consists of 15-second spots that capture comedic but often embarrassing or uncomfortable moments that happen behind the closed doors of a bathroom. Georgia-Pacific, an Atlanta maker of paper products and building materials, last month launched three of the campaign's 12 spots on an interactive Web site called AngelSoftPresents.com.

One spot finds two women in adjacent public stalls. The woman on the left begins to converse, presumably to the woman next to her. When the first woman asks if she can come over, the woman on the right responds, "I'd rather you didn't." The first woman abruptly leaves the stall, complaining into her cell phone that some "kook" in the stall next door keeps talking to her.

In another spot, a little boy is summoned by a family member as he stands in front of the toilet. The little boy turns to reply and inadvertently wets more than just the toilet bowl.

The tagline: "This uncomfortable bathroom moment brought to you by Angel Soft. Comfort where you want it."

Branding experts say Angel Soft may have a hard time achieving its buzz-building goal, in part because many consumers see toilet paper as a commodity product. John V. Allen, brand consultant for Highbridge Consulting in Darien, Conn., says consumers aren't as emotionally connected to bath tissue as they are to cars or movies, for example. In a "must-buy" category, he says, people feel they don't have to buy the flashiest product and they are likely to pay more attention to price.

Ms. Mattos says that bath tissue is a highly promoted category. Even so, she says, makers of tissue and other packaged goods haven't taken full advantage of the Internet as a marketing medium. She cites the Web success of American Express and BMW in particular as models to emulate.

Bayerische Motoren Werke promoted its luxury cars in 2001 with a popular series of Web shorts called "The Hire." American Express last year used "Webisodes" starring Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman to push its cards. And Burger King has also won attention online, with last year's "Subservient Chicken" promotion and other efforts.

Consumers are open to visiting a Web site to seek out ads from companies with a "cool" brand image, like BMW, says Scott Davis, senior partner at Prophet, a brand and marketing consulting firm in San Francisco. When it comes to bath tissue, "this is a category that is going to have to train us to think about humor," he says.

Angel Soft will break an additional six spots on the Internet on Sunday. That evening, it will air the six spots during "Desperate Housewives" on Walt Disney's ABC. The campaign includes radio ads as well. The remaining three spots will be shown on the Internet by June 1.

Georgia-Pacific declines to say how much it is spending on the new effort. Angel Soft more than doubled its ad spending in 2004, to $8.8 million, compared with the previous year, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Mr. Davis says Angel Soft's attempt to be comedic but edgy is spot-on, because it is the funnier or more-shocking ideas that get passed around on the Internet. Ms. Mattos says that spots such as the one with the little boy would have trouble getting past the censors at television networks for being too graphic.

"We are a brand that tells it like it is," she says. "We are soft, but we are not too soft."