Comments on: Marketing to Women #1: U by Kotex

By: Dan Dennehy

Dan Dennehy — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:14:25 +0000

Al – you are generating some interesting commentary in this threaded dialogue – I wonder how the marketplace is segmented, and how mother’s influence daughters.

Maybe somebody in the know will share….

Dan

By: Albert Ciuksza Jr.

Albert Ciuksza Jr. — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:46:59 +0000

Despite playing to the crowd a little, I was raised with parents who were very open about this stuff (i.e. I got the birds-and-the-bees conversation in first grade). As a result, I've always had a greater-than-average comfort level with these discussions. Regardless of the current social sensitivities, I am encouraged by the efforts by the brand to destigmatize the conversation, even if its from a position of self-interest.

To your point -- I actually LOVE that menstrual suppression hadn't factored into the internal strategy conversation before launch, but that the community brought it up. I suppose that plays into a few of my favorite marketing themes: first, that customers truly do control the brand; second, sometimes the company ends up following the consumer (my post on the green M&M addresses that); and third that social media can bring to the attention some of the blind spots that marketers might have when pitching their product.

In any case, I'd love to check in on the progress a couple of months from now (perhaps in summarizing the "women's marketing" learning experience). Keep up the great work!

By: Jordan Miller (U by Kotex Community Leader)

Jordan Miller (U by Kotex Community Leader) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:22:21 +0000

Thanks for the great post! We worked really hard to make this campaign something useful in addition to being pretty, and it’s so rewarding to see people appreciating our efforts.
In response to the question about menstrual suppression: It’s been fascinating to me to hear this issue brought up since we launched the program. To be honest, it hadn’t factored into our strategy (women using products like Seasonique are a very small percentage of our market), but it’s definitely come up quite a bit in the conversation online. From my perspective, we want women to feel comfortable and educated enough to make their own choices. If a woman wants to use a pill to lessen or cease her periods it’s her decision and her right, but it would be so sad if women were doing this out of shame or disgust about their own bodies.
Also, thank you for the compliment.

By: Albert Ciuksza Jr.

Albert Ciuksza Jr. — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:25:24 +0000

I never even thought about the threat that birth control poses. That reminds me of a story about a razor company in the 20s that convinced women that having underarm hair was disgusting, resulting in the shift of a social norm. It will be interesting to see how young women will respond — as a result, will they be more likely to embrace birth control or their period. That’s also why I thought “Break the Cycle” was an interesting choice — wouldn’t that be more appropriate for a birth control company than a tampon company?

By: J. Maureen Henderson

J. Maureen Henderson — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:03:29 +0000

The body/menstrual positivity angle is interesting. Laudable in that menstruation really does need to be destigmatized/reframed for many women, but also canny in a business sense, given that so much of the current birth control marketing centers around period control (being able to skip periods and thus eliminate the need for tampons, etc.), which is a legitimate threat to firms in the feminine hygiene product industry. The more women embrace menstruation, the less likely they are to see their period as a nuisance or something to be avoided and to keep companies such as Kotex out of the red (Sorry, had to go there. Powerless in the face of smirky humor).