How Kotex Won in Israel

The other day I had the opportunity to connect with an old friend who had just returned from a four-year ex-pat assignment in Israel. I was sharing what we’ve been doing with challenger brand clients here in the U.S., and he related a story about how the Kotex brand came into Israel with an all-digital program - and kicked butt. But not only was the Kotex approach all-digital; I found it to be all-meaningful as well.

The story of Kotex in Israel is nicely found on the Effie Award website, where the campaign won the Grand Effie in Israel in 2008. Let me summarize the story through the meaningful marketing lens:

Business Situation

The Israeli feminine care market has seen heavy competition over the years, and has been dominated by P&G’s Always brand with a 58% share and significant product innovations. Kotex entered the market with a fairly traditional marketing program and me-too product in 2004. Not surprisingly, it struggled to secure a 14.5% share after three years and heavy investment.

Marketing Objective

Eventually Kotex decided that it had to do something different. The brand chose to specifically hone in on teenage girls (ages 12 to 15). This is a wise choice, as these girls are coming into the category with a clean slate of brand awareness, but starting to make a lifetime of brand choices. Win their loyalty early, and there is a very long upside. In Israel this was also a relatively untapped approach, as the competition “focused on product innovation for older women.”

Meaningful Marketing

In approaching teens, Kotex first decided that digital is the most meaningful medium to use to touch this audience. This is a great example of how brands should make media choices not just based on what secures the most eyeballs, but rather based on where there is the biggest opportunity to drive true engagement. A few days ago I hit on this topic, using the story of how content that a brand creates can be much more important than getting the right context of advertising interruption.

Kotex’s second major decision was to build a digital creative platform around a virtual girl named Kita. The brand realized that teen girls still like to play and are using safe online environments to explore and grow socially. Kita was first introduced in an unbranded way through a blog, website, and original music. In further phases, girls could edit her music video, dress her, and communicate with her via IM.  Other tactics continued to add meaning, for example, online request sampling and product information and advice.

Results

The Kotex brand enjoyed huge success from this program. In terms of consumer engagement (the key measure of meaning), the site has had 500,000 visitors since August 2007, and more than 65,000 girls signed up for the sample kit. Those are pretty big numbers considering that there are only 230,000 teen girls in Israel.

And the business results closely followed consumer engagement. Kotex market share grew by 34% overall.  The specific Kotex Young line at the focus of this campaign saw 81% positive purchase intent, and it now represents 23% of Kotex total sales (versus the goal of 10%).

Finally, Kotex is using this approach in new market launches around the world. Kita is coming to Turkey, Russia, and South Africa, with others likely on the way.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how in new media like mobile, we are seeing “Leapfrog Marketing” - as advertising approaches in these new technologies skip the “interruption” phase and get right into “meaning” from the start. Similarly, Kimberly-Clark realized that it would have to leapfrog its established competitor by going straight into digital+meaning. It’s a lesson that makes sense for challenger brands everywhere - and a warning for market leaders that have still failed to adjust their approach.