Designing the iPhone of diapers

Innovation isn't just for Google and Apple. How Kimberly-Clark gave birth to a lucrative new product.

FORTUNE, August 25, 2008 — In a windowless room at Kimberly-Clark's research offices in Neenah, Wis., a mother hoists her baby girl onto a table painted on its side to look like a school bus. Photos of puppies and kittens decorate the walls, and a mobile with Sesame Street characters hangs overhead.

Top Advertisers Add Meaning to Marketing†

P&G, Others Aim to Aid, Not Invade, by Crafting Purposeful Campaigns

Advertising Age, May 26, 2008 — Self-loathing has become all too commonplace in marketing, as Bridge Worldwide CEO Jay Woffington sees it, and not entirely without reason.

Young marketers or agency executives don't take long to learn they've dedicated their lives to creating stuff people seek to avoid, and with increasing success. But Bridge, a digital unit of WPP Group's Wunderman in, of all places, Cincinnati, ancestral homeland of Procter & Gamble Co. and interruptive advertising as we know it, thinks it has a disarmingly simple answer: "Marketing with Meaning."

K-C, Unilever Turn Down TV to Ramp Up ROI†

Giants Pare Spots, Add New-Media Approaches in Push for Efficiency

Advertising Age, February 25, 2008 — As proof that it's spending its marketing dollars wisely, Kimberly-Clark Chairman-CEO Thomas Falk told analysts last week that the company expects to spend only 46% of its marketing budget on TV this year, down from 60% in 2004.

If you looked two or three years ago, out of our top six consumer brands, TV would have ranked as the most popular channel for all six," Mr. Falk told attendees at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York last week. "Today, TV might be ranked as the best channel for only three of those brands."

Package-goods titan Unilever also is out to prove it can spend more effectively, in part by using TV more cannily.

A Virtual View of the Store Aisle†

Kimberly-Clark and Others Track Shoppers in New Ways; Finding Huggies on the Shelf

Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2007 — Using a new tool developed by Kimberly-Clark Corp., a woman stood surrounded by three screens showing a store aisle, a retina-tracking device recording her every glance.

Asked by a Kimberly-Clark researcher to find a "big box" of Huggies Natural Fit diapers in size three, she pushed forward on a handle like that of a shopping cart, and the video simulated her progress down the aisle. Spotting Huggies' red packages, she turned the handle to the right to face a dizzying array of diapers. After pushing a button to get a kneeling view of the shelves, she reached forward and tapped the screen to put the box she wanted in her virtual cart.

Kimberly-Clark hopes these virtual shopping aisles will help it better understand consumer behavior and make the testing... continue reading

How P&G, Kimberly-Clark, and Marriott Are Getting Back to Basics in Customer Experience

Marketing Profs, March 20, 2007 — There's no use longing for the return of the good old days. The new world of electronic information and global competition is here to stay. Customers will no longer simply gravitate to the brands, products, services, and organizations their parents trusted. Instead, they will continue to experiment, change, talk back, and exercise their newfound freedom of choice in ways that make life for organizational leaders increasingly challenging.

Think Small†

Every company wants to hit it big with market-shattering innovations. But the little changes, too, can make a huge difference.

Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2007 — When it comes to innovation, the conventional wisdom often tells companies to aim for home runs. But frequent singles can be just as important. Home runs, in this case, are radical innovations — breakthrough products, anything from disposable diapers to cellphones, that introduce a new core technology and provide much greater customer benefits than existing products.

Great Scott! K-C Value Brand Reaches $1 Billion in Sales†

Lessons From the Latest and Least Likely Member to Join the Club

Advertising Age, February 5, 2007 — In the panoply of billion-dollar package-goods brands, the newest may well be the lowliest. Kimberly-Clark Corp.'s Scott brand reached $1 billion in U.S. net sales for the first time in 2006, after leading the category since 2002 with a 7% annual growth rate.