Kimberly-Clark Discovers that a ViralCampaign + TheRightProduct = 30%SalesJump

A good friend of mine from college is now working as a sales rep over at Kimberly-Clark, you know the folks who make they make Huggies, Kleenex and Scott Towels; so when I see their name mentioned along with a viral campaign I have to take notice. Ad Age had a great write up about how K-C used a viral video site to promote their Duckbill brand, but as I read the article I couldn't help but feel as though they could have done so much more. Grant it, they hired a great company BuzzMarketing and Mark Hughes to do the job, not to mention they did spent some money on the videos and setup duckbill.tv which has received over 100,000 mentions from bloggers out there but only 65,000 visits, where's the buzz? According to the report the ad spots cost less than $25,000 to create and that they credit the 30% across-the-board sales increase to the Duckbill brand to the campaign which is reported as being less than $1,000,000 total, but now what? Was that 30% increase from year-over-year, quarter-to-quarter and how are they going to keep the sales going? I understand that a company of K-C's clout may look at those costs and think they've hit a home run, but could those dollars have been better spent for an even greater return? Don't get me wrong, the idea is great, but is their strategy in place to further develop the idea; all the while keeping marketing costs down and revenues up? Not only that, but the videos are not embedded flash so you have to utilize quicktime to view the videos which reinforces the poor planning notion. The point is if you want to make the campaign a success year over year then you have to plan properly, creating "Buzz" is great but creating a lasting buzz campaign is even better.