Shine On

Brandweek, March 27, 2000 by Adrienne Mand

Crest has reinvented Dental Health Month for today's wired kids, putting classroom favorites onto the Web to help kids fight the good fight.

HISTORY

Since 1963, Procter & Gamble's Crest toothpaste has sponsored a Crest Dental Health Month in first-grade classrooms across the United States. Teachers' lesson plans turn to brushing, flossing and bicuspids as children, via in-class materials, welcome characters like Geena the Giraffe and the toothpaste-swirl Sparkles from Sparkle Crest bubble gum-flavored toothpaste. And, of course, kids turn their mouths red chewing tiny discs that make plaque on teeth easier to see.

"The way most people remember the program," says Mike Kernish, assistant brand manager for Crest at the Cincinnati-based packaged goods giant, "is through the red disclosing tablets."

Now Crest's Dental Health Month--which reaches more than 85 percent of first graders--has extended the program beyond the classroom via crestkids.com, a new Web site created by NOVO, New York. The site features familiar characters from the school program, plus videos and songs in a space-themed environment called Sparkle City. Users can choose from four activities, all of which educate about dental health and what to expect when visiting the dentist.

Crest's goal, according to Gabe Weiss, e-marketing strategist at NOVO, was to go beyond what the students learn in school: "We didn't want to duplicate what the kids were seeing in the school program. We wanted to support it and extend it."

STRATEGY

Kernish explains that the site was "a huge opportunity for us to enhance the quality of the education. The technology was there, and we felt we should be using it for educational purposes."

Finishing all four earns users the title "Tooth Master."

To get started, NOVO presented Crest with some 20 different ideas for games and activities, which were tested by parents of first-grade children. The final four activities--Geena's Adventure, Doe Croc's Virtual Visit, Sparkle's Galactic Blaster and Robo Hippo Star Painter--were chosen with advice from hygienists, dentists, the American Dental Association, teachers and parents. "We got a lot of input from as many stakeholders as possible," says Kernish.

In Geena's Adventure, the popular giraffe from classroom materials asks users to choose the right tools--such as a toothbrush, floss and polisher--to combat the Rot Riders plaque that attempt to cause tooth decay.

In Doc Croc's Virtual Visit, users see a 360-degree view of a dentist's office and must find various tools and features, including dental hygienist Anita Cheetah, within the scene. "We want kids to become familiar with the dentist's office so when they go they feel more comfortable," Weiss says.

The Sparkle's Galactic Blaster uses a boom box and the Sparkle characters to lead a sing-along with tunes from the classroom tapes that are part of Crest's Dental Health Month program, including such hits as "New Teeth ... Coming to Stay" and "The Dentist is my Pal." The characters also play the toothbrush as a guitar and floss as an upright bass.

Users click their mouse to connect the dots and create pictures in Robo Hippo Star Painter. After the image is complete, a color palette allows them to "paint" the picture to create a masterpiece.

Targeting users ages 4-7 created some unique challenges for NOVO. "We found that some of them can read, some of them can read a little and some of them can't read at all," Weiss explains. "We wanted to make sure that we were able to address that." One solution was to include voiceovers to accompany text throughout the activities.

To make Sparkle City compelling, NOVO included characteristics of video games, cartoons, comic books and Pokemon. A child-specific writer within the agency also worked on the project.

As important as the "behavior and look of the site," notes George Johnson, vice president of creative at NOVO, "was what makes those things likable, what makes those things collectable, what makes the characters resonate with kids." Thus NOVO included plenty of attitude. "Geena's kind of sassy," Johnson notes. For instance, when fighting the Rot Riders, she exhorts, "Step away from the enamel!" Also, when users display their expert tooth knowledge, she encourages them with an energetic, "Righteous choice, comrade."

TECHNOLOGY

The crestkids.com site was designed for use at home over a 28.8 or 56k modem, though it requires the use of Macromedia's Flash 4 plug-in. Over these dial-ups, the site should load in eight to 10 seconds.

"One thing really important to us was how we used the technology," Kernish says. "Something I was really happy about was [that] Flash 4 made it possible to have really rich video and rich audio, but you still didn't need a cable modem. It's great that people can access it."

Johnson adds that the animations are shown while the content is streamed in MP3 for high-quality sound, making the site comparable to what kids are used to seeing in video games. To keep the audio streaming in time to the text, Johnson explains, the scenes are layered as sound streams in. "It's an application of the technology you just don't see on the Web," he says.