October 8th, 2008
Spreading the Word (and the Lotion) in Small-Town Alaska
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
The New York Times
With a campaign beginning this month, Vaseline is testing a more conceptual approach. Rather than creating an online social network, it is aiming to map the social network of a small town in Alaska. The idea is to show that a new Vaseline lotion, Clinical Therapy, is so effective that the residents of Kodiak, Alaska, passed the word around.
Vaseline representatives began mapping who was suggesting the lotion to whom. It was not curiosity that drove them, but commercialism. They were trying to find a plugged-in Kodiak resident who had widely recommended the lotion, to be featured in commercials. They found her in Petal Ruch, a voice coach and 40-year-old mother of four.