Target Up and Up Bedwetting Diapers New Design

Marketing products to deal with embarrassing ailments, from hemorrhoids to erectile dysfunction or unsightly toe conditions, has always been a challenge.

But what if you're trying to talk to kids? Introducing a product for bed-wetters this month, Kimberly-Clark is aiming to win over not only parents of the sufferers but the children themselves. But because many bed-wetters are so sensitive about their condition they won't wear a product to help them at night, Kimberly-Clark is adopting special euphemistic tactics -- in both product design and marketing.

Ads for the new shorts aim to be discreet, and Kimberly-Clark is using the Web to take the campaign directly to kids.

Sales of training and bed-wetting pants, which typically fetch a premium to the price of standard diapers, are increasing in the otherwise stagnant U.S. diaper category, which has been pressured in recent years by high pulp costs. Last year, sales of training pants in the U.S. garnered $1.15 billion, up 26% from 2001, according to Euromonitor International. Sales in the overall diaper market in 2006 totaled $4.9 billion, down from $5.2 billion in 2001.

Kimberly-Clark is considered the leader in the disposable training-pants category, which it launched in 1989 with a pull-on diaper called Huggies Pull-Ups. It expanded its training-pants business with the 1994 launch of GoodNites, which targets children who suffer from bed-wetting. Last year, GoodNites posted sales of about $189.7 million in the U.S., up from $172.7 million in 2001, according to Euromonitor.

Procter & Gamble, which remains neck-and-neck in its longtime race with Kimberly-Clark for leadership in the diaper aisle, entered the training-pants category in 2002 with Pampers Easy Ups, but still lags behind Kimberly-Clark. P&G doesn't make a product specifically intended to help children who suffer from bed-wetting.

Kimberly-Clark's new product, designed for children and adolescents who wet the bed at night, is a line of boxer shorts styled after the short pajamas many children like to wear. The boxers, sold under the GoodNites brand, act as a disguise for the diaper lining. The shorts are made of paper -- a version of the paper drapes and surgical gowns made by Kimberly-Clark's health-care division, modified to crinkle less loudly.

Some kids are resistant to pull-ups, adamant they've outgrown diapers. Whether kids will be swayed by the new boxer shorts -- blue for boys and pink for girls -- remains to be seen.

Bed-wetting affects an estimated five million to seven million American children each year, according to the National Kidney Foundation. For both kids and parents, it remains one of the most stigmatized childhood conditions. "Often there's a family history of bed-wetting," says Leslie Spry, a nephrologist and spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation.

Kimberly-Clark has gone out of its way to reduce the embarrassment factor associated with buying bed-wetting products. Consumers will have the option of buying single pairs of the boxers in a cardboard tube with a peel-off label so children can conceal its contents. (Multiple pairs will be available with regular packaging).

"We really do have to appeal to kids as well as parents," says Gary Keider, vice president of Kimberly-Clark's baby and child-care business. "The product isn't called 'bed-wetting pants' for a reason -- we increasingly understand the need to focus on the positive here," Mr. Keider says.

Ads for the new shorts aim to be discreet. Past ad campaigns for Kimberly-Clark's bed-wetting products highlighted the anxiety the problem brings and the relief the product offers. But TV ads for GoodNites boxers, which will target TV shows popular with mothers such as "Dr. Phil" and "Oprah," as well as programs on ABC Family Channel, avoid discussing the problem. Instead, they highlight the comfort of a normal bedtime routine, such as stories and star-gazing, and use the tagline, "You have better things to talk about at bedtime than bedwetting."

Kimberly-Clark is using the Web to take the campaign directly to kids. The company has ramped up the children's section on its GoodNites Web site, offering basic information about the problem and a chat room for children to exchange bed-wetting tips, success stories and advice on dealing with slumber parties.

In-store marketing also takes a covert approach. Since many parents with bed-wetting children no longer shop in the baby-care aisle, Kimberly-Clark plans to post information about the product in the laundry-detergent section. "When we talked about some of the obstacles to using GoodNites, one is awareness," says Tom Smilanich, a Kimberly-Clark marketing director. "Parents kept saying they were doing an awful lot of laundry."

One ad for the detergent aisle features a little boy peering through the window of a washing machine, along with the tagline, "Lighten the load."

The boxers are the latest attempt by Kimberly-Clark to overcome resistance to the GoodNites product. Since introducing GoodNites pull-ups in 1994, the company's product developers have tried to make the product less diaper-like by streamlining its design and adding graphics so it more closely resemble children's underwear.

Usually, the GoodNites brand is accompanied by the Pull-Ups name. But conscious that children today may associate the Pull-Ups brand with diapers, Kimberly-Clark decided to remove mention of the Pull-Ups name from packages of the new GoodNites boxers.

Write to Ellen Byron at ellen.byron@wsj.com

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Target Up and Up Bedwetting Diapers New Design

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118938281916522068

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