I missed this Adage article which explains how Zack16 is an ‘experiment’by P&G via Leo Burnett in Chicago. For many of the reasons mentioned in my prior post, I don’t think this experiment has been given much of a fighting chance.

Were it launched from the inside-out I think it might have had significant impact. It just goes to show you that in this media environment, anything less than a full court press probably isn’t enough. That was one thing Dove had going for it. Before the ‘Real Beauty’video, the campaign had been around for a couple years. It exists even today in multiple media. It has authentic aspirations to do more than sell soap. The YouTube video was just part of a comprehensive integrated approach that delivered a consistent idea with a long shelf life (unlike a lot of modern marketing efforts) that actually resonated with the inner feelings of millions of women. Pretty impressive for advertising. And soap.

Conversely, the Zack16 film was just uploaded onto the Internet in hopes that it would magically ‘go viral’. Generally speaking, I’m not sure how much ‘viral’can truly be engineered into anything, but there was certainly more that could’ve been done to help this program make a bigger splash.

According to the AdAge article, the standard campaign for Tampax is enjoying more YouTube viewing than Zack16.

In my mind, Zack16 could’ve been more than advertising for a lot of young people. There was the real possbility of dialogue there. It’s a taboo topic with a lot of emotions hitting kids at an age when talking about these things could make a difference (and earn some lifelong brand loyalty in the process). I think Zack16 could have really carved out a unique place for Tampax the way Dove’s Real Beauty made soap stand for something deeper than just clean skin.