What? Tampons in the Groundswell?

Chapters 9 and 10 of Groundswell focus on embracing the groundswell for innovation and how the groundswell can transform companies, respectively.

Both chapters reminded me of Kimberly-Clark's (makers of Kotex pads and tampons) most recent product line, advertising campaign, and interactive website - U by Kotex. Like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, which was profiled in chapter 10, U by Kotex takes a risk by challenging traditional norms for feminine care advertising and releases some control over its brand by creating content for the groundswell to interact with. The campaign also fits within the topics of chapter 9, because it uses groundswell forces to solicit direct and indirect feedback about its products directly from its customers.

According to the New York Times article, "Rebelling Against the Commonly Evasive Feminine Care Ad," U by Kotex was introduced in March 2010 and comprises an entire line of feminine care products, including pads, tampons, and pantiliners. It is targeted to teenagers and young women between 14 and 21 years old - a prime demographic for groundswell engagement. The products are small, sleek and come in a black box, individually-wrapped in a variety of neon colors.

U by Kotex Products  - Try a Free Sample HERE

In addition to the line’s inventive packaging, the U by Kotex’s advertising campaign has caused a stir for its innovative, frank, and satirical nature. The U by Kotex campaign, which includes television, print, and digital advertisements, directly references and mocks previous Kotex advertising campaigns. Watch the campaign's most famous advertisement, "Reality Check," below.

Other advertisements in the series include a candid camera-style video of a woman trying to convince men to buy her tampons, a man administering a fake Rorschach test with every ink blot resembling a penis or vagina, and a print advertisement with large text that says, “I tied a tampon to my key ring to make sure my brother wouldn’t take my car. It worked.”

All the campaign's advertisements, as well as its other forms of rich media, can be found on the U by Kotex YouTube channel, which has 890 subscribers as of today.


Though the advertisements are humorous, the campaign focuses also on the serious aspects of education and awareness in relation to menstruation. The website has multiple interactive venues for girls and women to post their personal stories, read articles, view videos, take quizzes, and ask questions about menstrual health, and sign a declaration to “break the cycle."

Sounds a lot like Tampax's beinggirl.com, doesn't it?

In Mass Marketing Retailers' article, "Kimberly-Clark gives Kotex brand new slant," Andrew Meurer, the vice president of Kimberly-Clark's North American group brands was quoted saying, "For the past 50 years, advertisers – Kotex included – have been perpetuating a cultural stigma by emphasizing that the best menstrual period is one that is ignored...We are changing our brand equity to stand for truth, transparency and progressive vagina care," he says. "Moving forward, the tone of the Kotex brand's marketing will adhere to its new tagline--'Break the Cycle.'" The tagline, he explains, comes from a 2009 study of the same name, which showed that while 70% of girls and women ages 14 to 35 feel it is time for society to change how it talks about vaginal health, only 45% of them feel they have the power to make a difference.

The entire U by Kotex campaign is a perfect example of a company embracing the groundswell and using it to energize its brand. Notice how Meurer noted a focus on transparency? There may be an altruistic side to Kimberly-Clark's transparent approach to menstrual product marketing, but my guess is they've recognized that transparency is key to success in the groundswell.

The U by Kotex campaign begs its target market to give it feedback and engage with its products. The website immediately greets all visitors with a prompt for feedback, and throughout the site, there are countless additional opportunities to chime in about the products, the campaign, and the movement.

A Snapshot of a Forum about U by Kotex Tampons

U by Kotex Prompts the Groundswell for Feedback

In addition to its YouTube account, U by Kotex manages Facebook and Twitter accounts, and according to the running tally at the bottom of the U by Kotex website, the brand has engaged 2,333,827girls in its cause. 


Cause or no cause, all that engagement with the groundswell is sure to improve U by Kotex's brand presence and encourage innovation in its products and its market approach, don't you think?

Groundswell Doesn't Come from the Ground

After reading the first half of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, I have not been able to get the social media movement - or the "groundswell" - out of my mind. While I have been aware of social media since I first made a MySpace in 2003, I am now more attuned to its powerful influence on society and marketing strategy.

Before reading Groundswell and taking the time to really contemplate social media marketing, when I thought "social media marketing," I thought, "That's right, old people, you'd better make a Facebook and Twitter in order to catch up with what us young'uns are up to." I would explain to my dad how to "friend" someone on Facebook or post on a "wall," and I would feel like an expert. Well, ladies and gentlemen, in case you were wondering,  I was not an expert.

Now I realize that, unfortunately for us young'uns, social media marketing is much more strategic than just knowing how to use basic functions on Facebook and Twitter. It is complex, risky, technical, largely unpredictable, and requires an innovative mind. At least it's not boring.

Some of the main concepts reiterated in the first six chapters of Groundswell were that social media is interconnected, that the content and brands projected into social media technologies belong to the network users and not their creators, and that there is no single social media networking strategy that works for every situation.

Take, for example, the infographic I found on Digital Buzz Blog. A user creates content and, if it's good enough, it tailspins into a maze of non-linear social media connections until, maybe, it develops enough buzz to appear on a reputable news site.



Whether or not content follows a trajectory similar to that shown in the above graphic depends on the creator - the marketer.


Groundswell has taught me thus far that success in social media marketing is about positioning. Marketers need to understand what social media technologies (if any) their target market uses and in what ways. They have to listen to the areas of the groundswell they hope to influence, and eventually, they have to strategically engage with them. The form of engagement marketers should choose is relative to their target market, the technology, and the marketer's creative ability. Knowing the important elements of a marketing strategy - the who, what, where, when, and why - then allows marketers to innovate. If they're lucky, they'll create an entirely new way of engaging with the groundswell.

In an industry that changes constantly and rapidly, "new" is a necessity.