Shop Talk
Retailers, consumers and prices
Cash for creative moms
At some point — usually in the middle of the night during the umpteenth feeding/diaper change of their child’s young life — most parents think they have come up with the greatest idea EVER that could revolutionize baby and child care.
Huggies wants to give the most inventive moms a bit of a financial boost. Just in time for Mother’s Day, the diaper brand and parent Kimberly-Clark have set up a grant program called MomInspired. The goal is to give away up to $15,000 to each woman with a great idea for a baby product.
The seed capital could help entrepreneurs grow their ideas into businesses.
There are about 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States and women are starting businesses at nearly twice the rate of men, Kimberly-Clark Chief Marketing Officer Tony Palmer noted, citing data from the Center for Women’s Business Research. However, it is still men who get the vast majority of the venture capital funding that is already out there.
“There’s this huge unmet need for seed capital for women,” Palmer told Reuters.
A peak into Kimberly-Clark advertising you won’t see
Tony Palmer has been rallying Kimberly-Clark to try out new campaigns since he became its first chief marketing officer in late 2006. He even put together a commercial that he shows to staff, featuring the company’s Cottonelle brand. While we cannot show it here, we did see it at the Promotion Marketing Association’s annual integrated marketing conference this week. Let’s just say a guy swings from a fire hose and then lands uncomfortably on his bottom. The tag line: “If you’re not nice to your ass, you’re an ass.”
No, consumers will not see that commercial. Palmer just uses it to get marketers to take more risks. Huggies is now a little edgier with its advertisements, including a “geyser” of urine splashing around when a father removes his son’s diaper.
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