Most marketing is made to target the end user of a product. You don’t market products with “There are no rules at Grandma’s House” to 10 year olds who will buy, but to the 65+ grandmothers who will love to get it as a present. The 10 year old wouldn’t want to have it hanging in their room. It just makes sense. You target who will actually use it and the people in between buying it buy it for the end user’s happiness/joy/excitement/cuteness.
But now things are shifting. Enter a baby strutting his stuff in a diaper. Should be normal, but the twist is that the diaper has a denim pattern on it. Do you think the baby cares? Doubt it. He’s happy pooping away in whatever gets strapped to his waist. So what’s the deal with the denim? In a market where the product has been changed, evolved, designed and pampered (pun) to death, where can a company go next? The modern diaper is at the top of its game in terms of functionality, so they turn to style. They put on girly pictures and guy pictures, but its not enough. And since the kid doesn’t give a crap (also a pun) about what he looks like, we see the marketing heading in the direction of the one buying. This campaign is making moms go ‘Awwww’ and running to the store to buy one certain brand of diaper. Now the product has moved from usefulness for the end user to wanting it for personal happiness/joy/whatever. So this leads to the question, once something is at its pinnacle of effectiveness across the field, how can you make it stand out more? What Huggies did, I think, is brilliant.
Here is the commercial in question for those who haven’t see it, so you don’t think I’m just making things up.