There’s little doubt that as an event, Camp Baby was a success. The mom bloggers who attended had a great time, and when I spoke to event architect Lori Dolginoff last week, she told me that Johnson & Johnson considers the event a success based on both their interactions with the women at the event and the emails she personally received from attendees afterward.
"We accomplished our goal of building relationships with the mom bloggers. We wanted to get to know the women face to face, not just through email. Even though there was risk attached in doing an event like this — there are always people that won’t like something — we felt it was worth it. Overall, the bloggers seem to appreciate that we are making an effort so I consider it a win. For me personally, seeing the women enjoying each other’s company was very rewarding."
I asked Lori why face-to-face was so important to them. She told me that J&J wanted to be seen as a leader in working with the mom blogger community and felt that the only way to do this was to meet the women. Clearly they wanted to make a strong public statement about their commitment to the community by entering it in a big, visible way.
But what about the long-term? Do wine and dine events make a solid foundation for long term relationships? For J&J or any company? I asked Lori how they intended to follow up Camp Baby with both the women who attended and the larger population of parent bloggers who didn’t enjoy the antics of Ted Allen, a free Nintendo DS and the wonderful world of Wii at the Frog and Peach dinner. Even though it is still early days yet, J&J must have some idea on how it intends to build on what it learned at Camp Baby.
She told me that moving forward, J&J will be focusing on growing the one-to-one relationships they began at Camp Baby as well as working with groups and networks of women/mom bloggers to make sure that future programs and communications are relevant. She said that J&J already has two specific initiatives in the planning stages, but could not give me any details at this time.
One hot topic among the moms who attended the event was chemical additives in baby products. Lori said they knew this going into the event and wanted to address it up front by having a speaker on the subject: "We are listening and looking at the best science. The feedback is very important and we definitely captured everything."
I wasn’t at Camp Baby, but from what I’ve heard and read, my sense is that they had hoped to convince the women of the safety of the additives and J&J’s science, and were somewhat surprised that the moms didn’t just take their word for it. That said, we should give J&J a little time to take action. Especially since the feedback may not have been what they expected.
I also asked Lori about the unacknowledged product component in the sessions. She said they needed to have it in order to have a place for the questions about specific issues, but that Camp Baby was about relationships, not publicity:
"We didn’t introduce any new products, as I would have at an event for press. By having it all there, we could then determine who was most interested in a given issue or product. For example, many women didn’t know that Neutrogena was one of our brands. We are now planning some Neutrogena giveaways with some of the bloggers."
No one really minded the product pitch component; the women expected it and most commented that it was very soft-sell. Nevertheless, I would recommend that companies doing a similar big event be even more explicit about any product component. Especially if attending a product expo or site visit is a required activity in order to participate. It’s like sitting through the timeshare presentation in order to get the free gift. It’s okay if you know that’s the bargain you’ve made. Not so much if it is a surprise.
As I said in my first post about Camp Baby, set the right expectations. I’d also recommend a few sessions, educational as well as recreational, that have absolutely nothing to do with products or company initiatives. By the way, I’m still baffled by the hair braiding session. There has to have been some other way to tie in hair care products….
I don’t want to revisit the pre-event criticisms too much because Lori stepped up, personally responded and addressed folks’ concerns as best she could. Anyone who has ever planned a big event, personally or professionally, knows that there are always a few kinks. However, one area I would recommend paying particular attention to is the invitiation process. J&J invited somewhere between 100-150 women for the 56 spaces and aggressively recruited women that it ultimately had to turn away. Think carefully about the ratio of invites to expected attendees and leave sufficient time between first outreach and follow-up to gauge real response.
I asked Lori what she would do differently next time:
"We would develop a website or area on our site explaining the program details. Our instinct with Camp Baby was to handle everything one-to-one with the women. In hindsight, it would have been better to also do some broad communication up front to address common questions. I also think we would have benefited from the extra layer of a senior person’s eye on the outreach, to understand things like if a woman recently had a baby, she might want to bring the newborn with her."
I agree 100%. Both of these things, a blog site and having people with more experience involved in blogger outreach, would make the process much smoother. It also bears repeating that you have to do your homework (prepare) and participate in a community before you jump in with a pitch or a program. Regardless of the level of research J&J did during the planning of Camp Baby, the company was simply a big company to the mom blogger community when it started the outreach. There was no trust, no relationship. They jumped in at the middle — the pitch — before it had laid the proper foundation.
Lori told me that as hard as it was to have all the critcism up front, she feels it was worth it: "It’s hard to explain, but we might not have had the level of engagement with the community if there hadn’t been some hiccups."
While I am glad it worked out for her, setting off a blogstorm is not a strategy I recommend. It wasn’t until she stepped in as a real person to address the criticism that things started to calm down. It’s so much easier to start the relationship with that personal engagement, and then invite bloggers to your party.
Whether Camp Baby ultimately is a success? Only time will tell. J&J certainly has made a splash and has the opportunity to engage with parent bloggers over the long term. But it has to stay the course. One date does not a relationship make, and more importantly, if you ask someone’s opinion, you have to be willing to take action.
That’s what the mom blogger community will be watching for — will J&J walk the talk?
Stay tuned.
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My previous Camp Baby posts:
- Camp Baby Blogstorm
- Post Mortem Part One (mom bloggers’ perspective)
- What I Learned from Camp Baby
Tags: J&J, Johnson & Johnson, Camp Baby, Lori Dolginoff, blogger relations
jodi says
Great article! I think a website would be a great idea. We did have a small community on NaBloPoMo, and I was very happy to see Lori join us there. It was helpful to have them hear our conversations, such as “what should we wear” because they later addressed it in an email.
Yvonne DiVita says
Glad to see this follow-up, Susan. I think J&J learned something valuable in the initial approach, and certainly this post shows they are trying to create good blogger relations. Your points are well-positioned and their ultimate success remains to be seen.
Busy Mom says
A great follow-up, thanks!
mothergoosemouse says
Susan, thanks so much for the time and effort you’ve put into these case study posts. A fantastic freebie for other companies seeking to reach out to parent bloggers – I hope they pay attention!
(And big cheers to Lori for being so open and accessible.)
Kim/hormone-colored days says
Thanks again, Susan. It’s been interesting to read the 360-view Camp Baby summary. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
I’m sure many a PR/marketing person has been shaking in her shoes thinking about how her company can top Camp Baby/Disney Blog Mixer or the recent Sony event. Your advice to simply focus on relationships first is probably very reassuring–and quite wise, IMHO.