Starting an Unlikely Conversation: U by Kotex Wants People to Talk about "The 'V' Word" - Ed Keller

quotCan We Talk About Vaginal Mythsquot That39s a headline that will catch one39s attention It certainly caught mine when it appeared recently in Ad Age The article is about the new marketing campaign from KimberlyClark39s U by Kotex brand quotOne might view this work as provocativequot according to Melissa Sexton integrated marketing planning director at KC who was quoted in the article quotBut it39s provocative not for the sake of being provocative but because that39s the way the honest conversation needs to happenquotConversation is what Kimberly amp8211Clark hopes to achieve and if history for this brand is a guide the strategy will pay offThere is a widespread belief that wordofmouth marketing works only in quotexcitingquot categories like technology cars restaurants travel and movies But the fact is that word of mouth can work for everyday products and brands in a whole host of categories even tampons as U by Kotex has demonstrated since it launched the brand in 2010A Social Strategy Starts With Ideas Worth Sharing Not Technology PlatformsAs Brad Fay and I discovered when we profiled Kotex for The FacetoFace Book the phenomenally successful launch of the tampon brand U by Kotex teaches many of the most important lessons about social marketing What is significant is that the lessons are not about how to design and execute a Facebook or Twitter strategy it39s not a technologydriven strategy and the metrics that matter are not about the number of fans or followers Rather it39s about a marketing strategy that starts with a powerful idea one with which the target audience can get engaged and feel motivated to shareKimberlyClark realized several years back that feminine hygiene products were a rather quiet category both literally and figuratively There had been little innovation in decades Traditionally it39s a category that women did not feel comfortable talking about Advertising and marketing in the category was long based on breezy images of snowy white purity and euphemistic language about quotfreshnessquot and quotprotectionquot Tina Fey joked in her book Bossypants quotI had noticed something was weird earlier in the day but I knew from the commercials that one39s menstrual period was a blue liquid you poured like laundry detergent into maxi pads to test their absorbency this wasn39t blue so I ignored it for a few hoursquotKimberlyClark executives believed that society39s unwillingness to talk honestly about vaginal health and menstruation was a serious matter with the potential to lead to bad health decisions and outcomes by teenagers unable to get the information they needed The crucial idea behind U by Kotex was that feminine protection should not be a taboo subject Not only should women feel comfortable talking about it but the category could even become fashionable U by Kotex39s packaging and applicators were designed to be colorful and its marketing would break the cycle of euphemistic advertising and communications about the category Tampons amp8211 and vaginal health generally amp8211 would become acceptable topics for conversation The launch of the campaign was designed to encourage honest conversation and to provide essential health and howtoinformation to young womenU by Kotex was launched in the US in March 2010 jumping from zero to a 55 percent share of the tampon market by the following spring while also increasing the overall Kotex share by 25 points to a total of 182 This was a stunning success in a marketing that hadn39t seen a serious product innovation since Tampax Pearl ten years earlierFrom a word of mouth perspective my firm39s research found that the Kotex family of brands increased their share of category conversations among females 13 amp8211 44 from 20 in 2008 to 32 in the first half of 2011 The brand was succeeding in driving people to talk The new campaign is the successor to this initial strategy and takes the conversation a step furtherThe Commercial IdeaIn writing the book we had the opportunity to talk with company executives plus the agencies involved in the campaign They talked about the importance of the quotcommercial ideaquot which is the starting point for new products at KC In effect they want the innovation itself to be talkworthyamp8212that is unique and worthy of being recommendedamp8212rather than a slightly new product variation with quotnew and improvedquot stamped on it or a clever television commercial In their minds the marketing then flows out of that new commercial idea And so does the social sharing both offline and online quotRight from the start we believed it was about word of mouthquot we were told by KimberlyClark39s Jay Gottlieb VP of adult and feminine care marketing recalling the development of U by KotexIf KimberlyClark can achieve wordofmouth success in the feminine hygiene category no marketer can be excused from doing the work required to achieve the same in their own marketplaceEd Keller CEO of the Keller Fay Group has been called quotone of the most recognized names in word of mouthquot His new book The FacetoFace Book Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace was recently published by Free PressSimon ampamp Schuster You can follow Ed Keller on Twitter Facebook and Google or contact him directly at ekellerkellerfaycomRead all Edamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at WOM MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Starting an Unlikely Conversation: U by Kotex Wants People to Talk about "The 'V' Word" - Ed Keller

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Starting an Unlikely Conversation: U by Kotex Wants People to Talk about "The 'V' Word" - Ed Keller

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