I’m endlessly fascinated by badvertising, especially the spots you see that make you exclaim, “what were they thinking?!” My latest contender for a badvertising award is the newest campaign from Kleenex, “Get Mommed”. This is wrong on so many levels that I don’t know where to begin. It stereotypes gender, race, religion, and even lifestyle. The Asian mom is a scold, the Latino mom says nothing more than “Hola”, the WASP mom is self-involved, the Jewish mom is endlessly encouraging, etc.; need I go on? I get the premise that the man-child traveling from house to house stays with each mom while they pamper him but leaves the moment they perform an unspeakable “mom” act such as serving a green vegetable or trying to spit-clean his face. But this alienates female consumers, Kleenex’s key demographic. It also fails to put the brand in a good light. If these women fail at being moms then why would a marketer want them associated with their product?
When female consumers connect with a brand it’s because they see themselves exemplified in the campaign. That’s why Target’s “Essentials” ads are so successful; they show smart moms saving money by shopping at Target without sacrificing their family’s quality of life. If you want moms to aspire to buy your products, pay homage to their success at selflessness, the thing that makes all the hard work they do worth it. If Kleenex wanted to create a scenario typical of Kleenex users, a better and more plausible approach would’ve been to depict the nurturer moms that have a seemingly endless supply of tissues at the ready in any and all situations, proving how necessary Kleenex are and how resourceful mom is. A face full of cupcake in the back of the car? Pass the Kleenex box. A scraped shin on the soccer field? Take out the pocket-size tissue pack. Possibilities are endless, just like a supply of Kleenex.
An alternate approach would’ve been to show some key movie footage of famous criers such as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind; Rhett Butler saying, “Never in any crisis of your life have I known you to have a handkerchief” or Diane Keaton as the jilted playwright during her crying jag in Something’s Gotta Give. An anonymous hand holding a Kleenex box comes in from off-screen with the tagline, “There when you need it.” Women would identify with those scenarios, maybe because they’ve experienced something similar. The new play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore is enjoying good reviews and a full house because women identify with many of the sentiments expressed by the actors. Getting your key demographic to identify with your brand is the key to brand identity. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.
