Tragedy Marketing?!

I’m not sure how I feel about this. In mid-April, the makers of Dawn liquid dish detergent started running TV spots that played up its reputation as the soap of choice among nonprofit groups who clean birds and marine mammals affected by oil spills. Procter & Gamble, the maker of Dawn, ran commercials mainly in April, before Earth Day, about cleaning birds after spills. Then, two days before Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

The timing must have created a uncomfortable twist for the marketers of Dawn, who were watching their commercials recreated in TV news reports about hapless birds covered in oil, which resulted in an accidental bit of free product placement.

The number of damaged birds, dead or alive, collected and cataloged by the federal authorities has soared in recent weeks to nearly 1,400 as of Tuesday, and cameras now routinely catch images of Dawn bottles in the background as brown pelicans and laughing gulls get hosed off.

“It is a tough thing,” said Susan O. Baba, a spokeswoman for Dawn, made by the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, which has sent 7,000 bottles of the detergent to the gulf at no charge and is planning to send 5,000 more.

And yet, sigh, it is a marketing opportunity. “An oil spill is exactly the situation where Dawn is able to help and exactly what we want communicated about the product: tough on grease, yet gentle,” Ms. Baba said.

But, she adds, the company has not put out any press releases, or made any commercials specific to the gulf disaster. She says the brand has not even decided if it will extend its current campaign past the end of June, when it was scheduled to end.

I suppose that helps deflect cynical accusations of opportunism and shameless self-promotion

Furthermore, Dawn does have its fans in the scientific community, including the International Bird Rescue Research Center. And, according to wildlife rescue experts, while other dish detergents were good, Dawn has the right ratio of “surfactants” – cleaners that cut oil – to be effective yet not irritate the birds and other animals like otters and seals.

Organizers also liked that it was readily available at any store and that it did not hurt animals’ ability to whisk away water.