Product Placements, Deftly Woven Into the Story Line

New York Times, March 1, 2009 — ON “Harlem Heights,” a new reality show on BET, the young and hip stars swish Listerine, treat their allergies with Zyrtec, and sweeten their coffee with Splenda.

For those who do not take note of the corporate logos on mouthwash, allergy medicines or artificial sweeteners, all three products are manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, one of the country’s pre-eminent consumer goods companies.

Few CMOs Think They're Effectively Tracking Social Media, Word-of-Mouth†

Survey: Marketing Execs, Not Other Departments, Should Be in Charge of Monitoring Customers' Conversations

Advertising Age, January 26, 2009 — Who in corporate America owns the consumer relationship, the customer experience, word-of-mouth or social media? The answer appears to be nobody.

For all the talk about listening to consumers, few marketers think their companies are doing so effectively and even fewer are monitoring what people say about their brands in social media, according to a new survey by the CMO Council.

How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign†

Bloggers Ignite Brush Fire Over Weekend, Forcing J&J to Pull Ads, Issue Apology

Adweek, November 17, 2008 — Johnson & Johnson did manage to offend some mothers with an online and print campaign for Motrin that implied moms carry their babies as fashion accessories. But was it a genuine groundswell that felled the effort — or an alliance of the few, empowered by microblogging service Twitter?

Marketers Take a Softer Tack to Reach Uneasy Consumers†

Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2008 — The roller-coaster stock market and plunging housing prices have left many consumers afraid. In response, marketers are adopting a softer approach to peddling their wares, playing up comforting images in their ads and focusing on family and the warmth and safety of home.

America Has Spoken: In Google We Trust†

Harris Poll Has Search Giant No. 1 in Reputation; J&J, General Mills and Berkshire Hathaway Make Top 10

Advertising Age, June 23, 2008 — The most reputable company in America: Google, which toppled Microsoft from the top perch in the 2007 Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient study released today — and sent it tumbling all the way down to No. 10.

But what should be even more eye-opening to the companies rounding out the top 10 — which include Johnson & Johnson and General Mills — and the rest of the list is that Google's victory shows that a company that spends nothing on advertising can still be the most positively perceived by consumers.

J&J's Web Ads Depart From TV Formula†

Baby-Lotion Cartoons Play Up Bonding Time: Risky Marketing Turn

Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2008 — Johnson & Johnson is one of the largest television advertisers in the U.S. But to promote its best-selling baby lotion, the company is putting most of its effort into a different approach: Web cartoons.

In one of its animated Web videos, as a mother starts massaging her daughter's feet, legs and chest, her baby giggles, smiles and makes eye contact. Pink swirls meant to represent the lotion's scent fill the screen.

The ads for Johnson's Baby Lotion, developed by an animation studio, not an ad agency, attempt to highlight the emotional connections babies build with their mothers. In contrast, most of J&J's competitors focus on the medicinal benefits of baby lotion. Johnson's is favoring the Internet over TV because it believes young parents scour the... continue reading

Don't Be Afraid to Plunge Into Emerging Media

Prophet, July 23, 2007 — Color today’s marketers dazed and confused. It’s an understandable reaction to an environment that has become almost impossibly complex, making it difficult for them to figure out where to start (or much less how to go about) meeting management’s escalating demands for demonstrable returns.