Vaseline Picks Local Blogger as Spokeswoman

The New York Times today tells the story of how Vaseline, a brand of consumer products company Unilever, found three product spokeswomen by listening on social media. One of them is Kailani Okamoto, the tireless mommy blogger behind An Island Life.

The agency worked with a subcontractor to crawl the Internet for conversations around words like “dry skin,” “lotions” and “skin issues,” and to scan blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook for conversations people were having about those topics… From there, the agency e-mailed a pool of bloggers and conducted interviews with about 75 women until it arrived at the final three bloggers with the most compelling stories.

The company has posted videos depicting their “Stories of Dry Skin Rescue.” In her video, Okamoto confesses that her skin was so dry, her kids could draw on it with their fingernails. Leave it to her mom, who is “very honest about her opinions,” to prompt her into finding a solution with Vaseline Intensive Rescue.

According to the Times, the three new spokeswomen will go on a “Vaseline Intensive Rescue Mission Tour” to Philadelphia, Aspen, Colo., Coney Island, and Duluth, Minn. The campaign, with a budget estimated to be in the “double-digit millions,” will also involve a new Facebook page chronicling the women and their journey, and allowing people to submit questions, request free samples, and enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to any of the destinations on the tour.