Kimberly-Clark’s product for light bladder leakage, Poise® pads were first featured on Saturday Night Live in March 2010 when Kenan Thompson spoofed a Poise commercial featuring Whoopi Goldberg. Now, it appears Poise is becoming a pop culture regular on the show. During the Weekend Update segment, SNL host Alec Baldwin, playing Tony Bennett, does a live commercial for Poise pads, holding up a packaging and thanking his sponsors. Although this was not a paid integration, it certainly looked like one!
Watch the segment here:
Poise on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update
Image courtesy of Dreamstime.com
Vagina as a new trend? According to an article in today’s New York Times, it is. Many of the new sitcoms, CBS’s “Two Broke Girls,” NBC’s “Whitney,” and ABC’s “Suburgatory” used the word vagina, not va-jay-jay, not hoo-ha, and no bleeping, in their premieres this week. In the article Emily Kapnek, the creator of “Suburgatory” says, “How could anyone take issue? It’s not like vagina should be perceived as a dirty word.”
Props for her enlightened viewpoint! We hope this trend continues to evolve. In a survey our client U by Kotex* conducted just two years ago with Harris Interactive, 43% of women felt more comfortable saying “penis” than “vagina.” We can’t help but think that our ongoing U by Kotex campaign has been helping to pave the way for this trend –whether by smashing walls of euphemisms with Khloe Kardashian or working with Tyra Banks to encourage women to sign the Declaration of Real Talk.
What’s your point of view on all this enlightened talk about vaginas? Are we all becoming a “little desensitized” as noted in today’s Times? Or is it that we’re just craving real talk? I’m happy to see that the networks are updating their language in the sitcoms. But I’m curious, is it only ok to use the word for comedy’s sake and not for education? Let’s see what the networks do next.
MMC partnered with U by Kotex* to announce the winners on Saturday of the U by Kotex “Ban the Bland” Design Contest, which challenged consumers to bring design to the bland feminine care category during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City. The winners were three of 15,000 consumers who submitted designs for feminine care products. The winners were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with fashion visionary Patricia Field to develop their designs into colorful U by Kotex* accessories that will inspire the future of feminine care and U by Kotex* designs. In addition, they attended the Charlotte Ronson fashion show.
U by Kotex also took advantage of Fashion’s Night Out to distributed product samples in trendy areas throughout the city.
Light Bladder Leakage (LBL) is a topic that most women associate with stigma, shame and an admission of growing old. But after last night’s episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, perhaps a few more women will be willing to address a condition that affects 1 in 3 women.
Kris, a spokesperson for MMC client Poise pads, was featured this year in a Poise campaign as Rosie the Riveter, an American cultural icon who represents millions of women who also may have dealt with life’s little leaks but didn’t let that hold them back from doing great things.
Sunday’s episode of KUWTK showed how the benefits of working with a spokesperson who embraces a topic can pay off. Although Poise did not sponsor the show, much of the episode focused on how Kris, the business-savvy mom of the famous Kardashian sisters, embraced her condition by turning it into a business opportunity. After being teased by her daughters about LBL as she experienced its multiple triggers – jumping, laughing and hugging, Kris negotiated her relationship with Poise (referred to as a pad for “light leakage.”) The final scenes included a clip from Kris’ Rosie the Riveter video shoot.
The episode was watched by over 750,000 people and in true Kardashian fashion put LBL back in the headlines in online media including The Hollywood Gossip, Hollywood life and Cafemom The Stir.
Check out a clip from last night’s episode here.
Last night, MMC won two Silver Anvil Awards of Excellence for its work on Kimberly-Clark’s U by Kotex and Poise. These prestigious awards, given by the Public Relations Society of America, are proud additions to a number of other awards these public relations campaigns have won this year, including the SABRE, the Big Apple, the PR News Platinum Award and a Bronze Effie.
Although the agency has won many awards in recent years, including Consumer Shop of the Year and Creative Agency of the Year, the widespread recognition we’ve received for the Kotex and Poise campaigns is quite meaningful to an agency that specializes in marketing to women.
It’s because we broke through a barrier for the second time – receiving an award for marketing to women in a category that made the judges uncomfortable.
In 1996, MMC swept all the PR Awards, including the Silver Anvils, for our launch of the Wonderbra. We made the brand into a household name, helping to generate sales that went through the roof and lift the parent company’s stock to new heights. This accomplishment was despite the fact that none of the judges – for any of the awards we won – were comfortable voting for the Wonderbra. They considered it “girly” and “female” and “frivolous.” Yet they felt compelled to vote for us because our results were extraordinary.
In 1996 it was about overcoming discomfort above the belt. In 2011, we tackled below the belt – menstruation and light bladder leakage (or as the Poise spokesperson Whoopi Goldberg called it, the “spritz”). These topics were so taboo that television networks refused to run TV commercials that used the term “down there” – although they had no problem running ads for Viagra that warn men to consult their doctors if they “experience an erection that lasts more than 4 hours.” We know the “fem hy” category and use of the word “vagina” makes many people uncomfortable. So we are especially grateful that the judges could look beyond these category taboos and vote for our campaigns simply because we produced phenomenal results that had a powerful impact on the products’ bottom line.
We couldn’t have a better client partner – Kimberly-Clark, who had a commitment to shaking up the category. And we’re proud of MMC’s teams, led by Health & Well-Being practice leader Diana Littman Paige and SVP Jennifer Horowitz, for breaking yet another barrier in marketing to women and for helping women to be more comfortable with everyday health issues that no one should be ashamed of.
I am looking forward to the day when prejudices and discomfort about women’s health issues and products for “down there” comes to an end!
MMC and Client Kimberly Clark, P&G and Novo Nordisk Take Home PRSA Big Apple Awards
MMC, Procter & Gamble, Novo Nordisk and Kimberly Clark were big winners last night at the PRSA Big Apple Awards honoring their work for U by Kotex, the Novo Nordisk Insulin franchise and Head & Shoulders.
U by Kotex won a Big Apple Award for a program that showed millennials that U by Kotex is not your mother’s menstrual protection by being culturally disruptive and consistently innovative. The Declaration of Real Talk campaign inspired millennials to drop the code, metaphors and girly language about vaginal health and promoted social change. The program generated major traditional and social media coverage and drove women to action in purchase decisions and on the website.
Head & Shoulders was awarded Honorable Mention in the Integrated Communications: Consumer Products & Services category or its “Polamalooza” program that showed how to get men to embrace a product they only know as a dandruff shampoo and transform it into a pop culture hero, while driving trial and a billion plus media impressions. Working with NFL All-Pro Safety Troy Polamalu, Head & Shoulders and MMC created an integrated extravaganza, which grew market share by 5%. Head & Shoulders’ status as a pop culture phenomenon was solidified when Troy’s hair, courtesy of H&S, became one of 2010’s top Halloween costumes and Guinness World Records recognized Troy’s hair and H&S as the “highest insured hair” ever.
Novo Nordisk (NNI) was awarded Honorable Mention in the Marketing Consumer Products: Healthcare category for its “Race with Insulin” program, which raised awareness of the NNI insulin portfolio, (specifically, Levemir® and NovoLog®), and the prefilled insulin pen FlexPen®. Working with Charlie Kimball, the first licensed driver with type 1 diabetes to ever race in the IndyCar Series, NNI and MMC were able to promote Charlie’s inspiring story while integrating branded NNI product mentions into his discussion of race preparation. Through traditional and social media (Charlie’s Twitter page, Race with Insulin™ was the first pharmaceutical branded Twitter page) Charlie drove awareness of NNI products and proved that diabetes doesn’t have to “slow you down.”
MMC’s work for U by Kotex* and Poise, both products of Kimberly-Clark, have been selected as finalists for the PRSA Silver Anvil award. The public relations profession’s most prestigious honor, the Silver Anvil Award acknowledges the very highest level of achievement and is the established icon of the “best of the best” public relations practices. This year’s competition drew a total of 852 entries, and of those, only 122 organizations were selected by the Silver Anvil Judges. The Silver Anvil Awards Ceremony will be held on June 9 at the Equitable Tower in New York City. Silver Anvil winners and Award of Excellence recipients will be announced at that time, along with the “Best Of” Silver Anvil.
