Case: Pampers
There's no more blissful experience than becoming a parent. Baby-care brands have been portraying the joy of parenthood for many years. Yet, not so many have been courageous enough to talk about the actual, candid experience of parenthood that is filled with anxiety and frustration.
As a part of our ongoing work for Pampers, we explored the realistic side of parenthood to find new territories and best potential entry points that Pampers could deploy. Based on our analysis of over 150 campaigns and 17MM digital consumer mentions, we identified high-potential opportunity spaces with long-term relevance and factors that will help Pampers succeed in these spaces.
Competitive Analysis
Understand whom Pampers is up against and what they need to do to be competitive
The stories of parenthood pathways are relevant not just for brands operating in the baby-care category. Those brands with the narratives revolving around care, safety and human connection have been actively speaking about family life for a long time. By looking at more than 150 campaigns of these brands, which we categorized into direct, indirect and conversational competitors, we began to understand how they approach the topic of parenthood, but also how they contribute to the parent community.
From what we observed, It comes as a disappointment that these campaigns lack creative execution and innovative use of media. Many of them are rather cliché and predictable, relying on touching imagery and highly-emotional voice over. The lack of creativity is also apparent in the portrayal of the real American family. Although brands are making significant efforts to portray families that go beyond the "white picket fence" stereotype, they still fail at capturing diverse family structures. These structures are changing fast in the modern-day world, and the typical "nuclear family" as we know it from the commercials has become the exception rather than the rule.
In the continuous attempt to make baby-care advertising look more credible for new parents, fathers are becoming more central to the parenthood stories, and brands are seeking ways to create better conditions for stay-at-home dads.
Since brands across many industries have been tapping into this space for many years, it was necessary to find attributes that will help Pampers distinguish from the competition. Our analysis of competitive landscape helped us identify hygiene factors that represent the must-haves for entering the parenthood conversation, and levitators consisting of attributes that would enable Pampers to make progressive actions and establish a meaningful connection with the parent community.
Conversational Analysis
Identify the most prominent topics and the best potential entry points
Helping Pampers move forward within the parenthood space, we analyzed over 17MM digital consumer mentions and 20B interactions to find the most prominent as well as prospective topics. We categorized the conversational landscape into 30 different sub-topics that zoom in on diverse parenthood scenarios and the challenges single moms, stay-at-home dads and couples face every day.
Abstaining from the breadwinner role, stay-at-home dads are strained by the stigma of manhood. Dads that stay home voluntarily to be the primary caretakers are often perceived as a failure in the public eye. However, in the modern era, the concept of stay-at-home dads is gaining on popularity, and many of them are successfully redefining what manhood means.
TikTok Moms has been rapidly rising in popularity for their honest depiction of what being a mom means. Breaking the Instagram “mommy” rules of showing only the perfect family pictures, TikTok Moms are bringing more fun and uplifting tone to the parenting social media content.
Opportunity Spaces
Understand how Pampers can move forward within the Parenthood space
These findings but also many others served as a foundation for fabricating 5 most relevant opportunity spaces for Pampers. By combining our learnings from the competitive and conversational research, we explored the talking points relevant for each opportunity space that will guarantee high-engagement and higher audience involvement.
Conclusion
To pursue the evolution from a trusted brand to a brand loved by modern Millennial family, we created strategic recommendations that would allow Pampers to break free from the industry conventions and paint a more progressive picture of modern parenthood.
Moving forward, Pampers can utilize this compass to set a clear direction for their brand platform, to educate the wider Pampers team about the space they compete in, and above all else to inspire creative agencies with insights that will ensure lasting emotional consumer connection.