Localspeak

People On The Go For The Holidays Want To Know

16 December 2011

So who is “behind” my ultimate gift pick for the urbanite on your holiday list?

Hint: Think Proctor & Gamble

Every city dweller, including this Manhattanite, who pounds the pavement, faces a common human predicament at one time or another, even in familiar neighborhoods—where to head when Mother Nature calls.

And so in keeping with the holiday spirit on this final blog of 2011, here’s my ultimate gift pick for the urbanite on your list— SitOrSquat, the application developed for people on the go by Densebrain and originally released on the iTunes Store in 2009.

Assembled for users on the go, literally, SitorSquat from P&G’s Charmin brand is billed as the world’s ultimate restroom finder. A royal salute to the founder of the porcelain throne—Thomas Crapper, who certainly would be honored— the app boasts an extensive gallery of crapper photos, reviews and ratings from across the globe—115,239 toilets at this writing.

SitorSquat continues to fulfill the human urge by promoting its use through social media content marketing and the SitorSquat webpage. At the top of the Charmin website, the app sits (squats?) ready to go, with a lead-in at the App Store that reads like the clarion call for a social crusade:

All of our toilet finder content is added by YOU , our loyal users.
Join the SitOrSquat movement.

And with mobile deference to an aging Baby Boomer population, SitOrSquat suggests the app’s easy use “for anyone with IBA (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), Crohn’s disease, diabetes, kidney problems or bladder dysfunction.” Ensuring users have a better, if not best bathroom experience, the app features an abundance of filters, including changing facilities.

Last holiday season Charmin sponsored a contest titled Queen of the Go nation, featuring “Glee” star Jane Lynch as judge who crowned the winner “Queen of the Throne.” With P&G’s ingenuous use of Charmin social content marketing, Localspeak couldn’t resist heading to our social analytics tool Netbase to discover what consumers had to say, and to learn how the brand was continuing to leverage its clever app.

Oddly, we don’t find a holiday repeat of social buzz for the brand, with net sentiment dropping off the charts. Although the SitorSquat app continues to get rave reviews on such key sites as Trip Adviser, with lens-happy fans trolling Thomas Crapper’s underworld and actively posting on its webpage, Charmin has not sustained a holistic offline marketing effort.

After posting this Chanukah message last year on the SitorSquat Facebook page, one excited fan in Brooklyn, NY suggested collaboration with his Poop Project:
This is fantastic! Please check out my own potty work—there might be room for collaboration.
source

As the holidays approach this season, urbanites such as me still want to know— has P&G’s Charmin wiped its hands clean of the SitorSquat campaign? And if not, where will they be headed in 2012?

Happy holidays from Localspeak. And yes, all the puns above were intended for jollies.