Lizbeth Pal

Associate Strategist at Jack Morton

263

Kotex -the uncomfortable for the uncomfortable

Menstruation is not a picnic. So why does most marketing push stories through the “hey girlfriends, period is your friend, let’s jump like leprechauns and find happiness over the rainbow” lens?

I think this is an interesting category as 100% of women experience period menstruation, yet I feel 90% of marketing miserably fails or doesn’t cut through. With so much data and information about the target audience and category, it will be interesting to see what kind of insights I myself may come to.

Below is one the ads in the top 10%-

http://www.mamamia.com.au/rogue/camp-gyno-the-best-ad-about-periods /

For this project I’m looking at Kotex in Australia. Kotex has undergone repositioning in the Australian market, once a nanna brand now it is a predominately young adults brand. It has recently been in the media for it’s ‘crotch sweat’ ad, which has won no favours with the public.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/how-crotch-sweat-became-the-new-enemy-in-feminine-hygiene-20130712-2pu1v.html

Brief

Increase sales through recruiting new customers while they are young and experimenting, as well as recruiting switchers -both resulting in creating loyalists for life.

Unit 1: Five Category Insights

Google Trends

1. Period search over indexes in the health category and Summer months of Australia

•How can Kotex leverage period search in Summer and provide relevant information ?

2. Pads and tampons have similar search interest throughout the year, however tampons spike during mid January (warmest time in Summer)

•What is the differentiated Kotex tampon story in summer?

Google Insights

3. 55% of conversions (store visit, phone call or purchase) triggered by a mobile search occur within an hour

•How can Kotex use mobile to create a stronger call to action?

Pew Internet Report

4. 46% of health seekers believe that the key factor for online health search is to get information anonymously

•How can Kotex make health seekers feel comfortable in online health search

MixRank

5. Women are receptive to Kotex messages offering the product range and aiding resources

•How can Kotex use interest in Kotex’s product range/ resources to push consumers down the purchase funnel?

Unit 2: Competitor Analysis

For this unit, I will be looking at Tampax. The two female sanitary brands have gone head to head in trying to attract and own the younger demographic.

Here’s a short blog entry on their showdown:

http://advertisinginthecity.wordpress.com/tag/tampax-kotex-advertisement-magazine-bikini-limbo-beach-tampon /

Compete

1. During April to May, traffic increased by 300%. While the spike is now depleting, it will be interesting to see what activity drove the steep spike?

Is this a result of the Tampax Pearl Active #awesomelyactive girls campaign activity?
http://www.timessquarenyc.org/mediapress/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=110#.UhFuKNKLCHc

Google Blogs

2. Low value content creation.

Searches for free samples and coupons are diluting the brand’s value. Movie 43 stunt ad is not on brand and has no brand relevance.

OpenSite Explorer

3. Kotex leads Tampax in the search game.

Suggests Kotex’s search strategy is more efficient than Tampax. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of demographics (for both brands) to see who has the larger share of teens-young adults.

4. Product, problem (puberty information) and coupons are the top performing pages for Tampax.

It is likely that girls are not convinced by Tampax, and are looking for low cost avenues to trial Tampax products.

Facebook

5. Young adults (18-24) from LA are the most common users on Facebook.

What aspects of the LA lifestyle, which also aligns with Tampax’s social content, reasonates with the target audience?

Popularity has dramatically fallen since June

Whilst the #awesomeactive campaign is still running, the audience has been more engaged with campaign content relating Bethany Hamilton, than gymnastics, volleyball and diving.

Unit 3: Persona Development

Topsy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXz9OcnRBYY

1. Unprompted earned media has positioned Kotex to be relevant to pop culture.

Action Bronson is a New York rapper who featured in Kotex’s social experiment in 2010. Recently he declared on Instagram that featured he in the ad, catapulting Kotex onto pop culture media outlets and exposing the brand to new audiences.