Huggies Diapers Advertising
Huggies Makes Happy Babies Since 1978
After ten years of market testing, Huggies were introduced to the mothers of the United States. The name Huggies is synonymous with Diapers, just as the brand name Kleenex is often used to replace the product name, Tissue. Interestingly, both Kleenex and Huggies are owned by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.
Huggies has many diaper products, including: Supreme Gentle Care, Natural Fit, Snug & Dry, OverNites, Pull-ups, Little Swimmers and GoodNites.
Years ago, Huggies passed their competition with the slogan “Huggies Makes Happy Babies.” The emotional connection that consumer felt with this tagline, which says very little about the product, and nothing about its product attributes, was much stronger than any rational benefit tagline would have created.
One ad showed a baby-baseball team with the homerun hitter sporting a pair of Huggies, while the other toddlers looking on with admiration. The ad also included a cartoon product demonstration of the diapers leak protection system; While the demonstration had little impact on consumers compared to the happy baby baseball game, at the time the company refused to air an ad without a demonstration.
Mid-year 2006, the Kimberly Clark Corporation broke a campaign for their newest Huggies products – Supreme Gentle Care and Natural Fit – aimed at mothers of infants and newborns. The campaign consisted of numerous media executions, including television, online, print, diaper-shaped direct mail coupons, inserts, in-store displays, and a promotion with the Walt Disney Company. Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide handle the print and TV advertising, while all over advertising is handled in house.
Ogilvy and Mather place print ads for Huggies in parenting magazines and TV spots on iVillage’s Newborn Television Channel which plays in 1,840 hospital maternity rooms. In addition to banner ads, the Kimberly Clark Corporation ran a promotion on its site http://www.huggiesbabynetwork.com where users had to find game pieces online or on the Huggies packages for a chance to win a Disney vacation.
In 2007, Pampers took Huggies to court claiming one of their advertisements was untruthful. The ad stated that other diapers worked if you had a “brick baby,” but Huggies has an hourglass shape “for babies of the human variety.” It is interesting that Pampers took this to court, when no opponents name was mentioned in the advertising.
In March of 2008, Huggies became the second advertiser to sign up with the website http://www.meetup.com – a site that facilitates offline meetings of online users who share similar interests. The Huggies initiatives are aimed at mothers of young children, the diaper brands typical target.
With 80,000 meet-ups facilitated each month, Huggies is hoping to capitalize on the increasingly popular two-way conversation between brands and consumers on online mediums, including social networking, community websites, blogs, and virtual worlds.
Huggies created a “Huggies Baby Countdown” widget for expecting moms to use to calculate how much longer their pregnancy will last that can be downloaded on numerous social networking sites, including Meetup. The Kimberly Clark Corporation plans to spend 35% of its overall market spending on non-traditional media in 2008, compared to 25% in 2007 and 10% in 2004.
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