I know. I’m talking about tampon. I didn’t necessarily choose the product before coming across the news myself; so just know that I have no personal interest in this particular product category.

I read an article about the upcoming personalized digital campaign by O.B., a tampon brand owned by Johnson & Johnson. I’m sure a lot of you saw their highly personalized campaign that went viral at the end of last year. For those who somehow missed it like I did, the story is that O.B. had a distribution issue that caused shortages in many areas, and this even lead to some of the consumers turning to eBay in order to buy the product at higher prices from other sources. After the debacle, O.B. launched an Internet campaign where women can type in their names, and shortly after, a 2~3 minute video clip of a man singing an apology song to them was generated. The kicker is, your name is actually in the video, written at the top of the music score sheet, written in rose petals, written across the sky, and even sung out loud by the actor. This is an example video for someone who typed in Sara as her name.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co6G3xq_OoY]

I figured they used a pretty sophisticated video tool that can generate those footages automatically. But when the actor actually sang the person’s name, I wondered if they pre-recorded different names prior to the campaign. Turns out, there is a sound production company, called Keen Music, that has the ability to automatically generate a natural voice on demand as well. This campaign was shared by many and shortly took off and recognized as one of the most successful personalization in marketing.

O.B. has ended the Apology campaign, but they are returning with an Endless Celebration campaign late this November, (….for the launch of O.B. Ultra absorbency tampons…. Sigh) where people can experience at least the same level, if not more, of customization within the ad. I must say, I’m almost tempted to type my name in just to have a song personally dedicated to me.