Trying Something New with Unilever

Between August 1 and mid-September, 50 Brazilian families will randomly “win a day of Unilever sponsored family fun" and presumably will let us all know about the experience of being followed home and filmed by a Unilever promotions team.

Here’s the concept. Fifty boxes of Unilever’s Omo new stain-fighting detergent, spread amongst 35 Brazilian cities, will carry a GPS tracking chip. Thirty-five Omo promotional teams will be standing by to follow the signal to someone’s home, congratulate the winner and present them with a pocket-sized video camera and a certificate for their day of fun.

Reaction of the surprised winner will, of course, be filmed and posted online at the Blog de Omo, as will the photos of winners and their locations.

“Is your detergent stalking you?" asks Advertising Age of the new promotion called “Try Something New with Omo." Omo and its agency, Bullet, are being criticized for privacy by some, commended for an innovative promotion by others.

Personally, I’m on the side of innovative promotion, but only if the winners are given the option of not being posted or named on the Web site. I don’t believe there is even implied consent for use of image … all they did was buy laundry detergent.

Omo is Brazil’s top selling detergent, with a home penetration of 80 percent. It accounts for half of the detergent sales in the country. One report said this campaign will cost about $1 million, start to finish, of Omo’s annual $23 million advertising budget. Although the product here is detergent, certainly if the promotion is successful, it will be moving in to all sorts of consumer goods.

So, what do you think … creepy and invasive? A promotional break-through that smartly leverage’s today’s technology? Or both?