Order Description
Read the Orabrush Case Study Below
Orabrush The Orabrush is a tongue cleaner invented in 2008 by Dr. Bob Wagstaff. Though Dr. Wagstaff
knew he had a good product, he could not secure wide retail distribution, and in the few stores
where he was able to secure shelf space, saleswere disappointing. At the same time, he tried to
sell the Orabrush online and through infomercials, but sales were also lackluster through these
channels. After two years losing money with his sales efforts, the marketing lead at Orabrush, Jeff
Harmon, came up with the idea to create a video about bad breath. In the video, a spokesperson
rants about bad breath, describes a reliable way to test for bad breath, then gives reasons why the
Orabrush is the most reliable way to eliminate bad breath. The video can be found here, or you can
view it below. The video’s effect on Orabrush sales was dramatic. The conversion rate of traffic
coming from the video was several times higher than the conversion rate of traffic that came from
AdWords. The reason for this higher conversion rate should be obvious—YouTube traffic had just
watched a video explaining why the Orabrush could reliably eliminate bad breath. Traffic that came
from AdWords had no compelling reason to believe that the Orabrush would effectively curb bad
breath. In addition, the video had some virality, generating additional views for which Orabrush
did not have to pay. Orabrush had hit the gold standard in business use of YouTube—it had created a
video that simultaneously advertised (it increased watchers’ propensity to buy an Orabrush) and
entertained (which resulted in free views). But the success of this campaign was not due entirely
to the content of the video. To increase its success, the marketing team at Orabrush continued to
act after it posted the video. Instead of just posting the video and hoping it would go viral, the
team bought paid advertising on YouTube to build momentum in the number of people viewing the
video. It continued to optimize the website landing page to increase conversion rates of any
YouTube traffic that made it to the site. It also optimized the end-of-video messaging to increase
the percentage of viewers who clicked over to the website. It engaged the social aspect of YouTube
by purchasing endorsements from popular YouTube celebrities. All these actions turned a losing
product into a huge winner. The company’s YouTube success ultimately propelled Orabrush into
getting distribution deals in retail giants like Walmart.
Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper and answer the following questions:
Why were both Jeff and the former BYU student unable to create a profitable AdWords campaign to
sell the Orabrush?
Once Jeff had optimized the orabrush.com site and the YouTube video messaging, what was
Orabrush.com’s average value per visitor (to the YouTube video, not the homepage)?
If you were Jeff and you decided to run Facebook ads for Orabrush, would you send them to
orabrush.com or to the YouTube video?
If online advertising and sales were profitable, why did Jeff still want traditional retail
distribution for the Orabrush?
