A Boomer marketing campaign can get it right

I often use this blog to ask why marketers aren’t bothering to ask Boomer women what their lives are actually like before they develop their marketing campaigns. Women are more than happy to tell you about themselves, and there’s nothing like that dose of reality to help marketers overcome their most common mistake: buying into the stereotypes that get Vibrant Women all wrong.

I recently spoke with one marketer who has gotten this right, in an unexpected category: adult diapers.

Blake Boulden is a Brand Manager for Kimberly-Clark’s Depend brand, which recently launched a television and print campaign that features a great woman’s version here.

I haven’t seen a better recent example of an ad that captured the depth and complexity of a real 50+ woman’s life – the main character is an orchestra conductor described first in the words of her affectionate and respectful colleagues, then in her own voice. She tells the viewer: “People know a lot of things about me, but no one needs to know about my condition.”

I like everything about this ad. It shows a smart Boomer woman who is balancing an exciting professional life with a common physical condition associated with aging. And it uses a straightforward work like “condition” (rather than a euphemism or technical term) in the way we know real women do.

How did the Depend brand get this right?

Blake Boulden told me that the campaign began with abundant research, both qualitative and quantitative, and led them to focus each ad on a real person struggling with incontinence.

The campaign is centered “on the idea that Depend keeps my condition invisible so that I can stay visible,” said Boulden. “We rallied around that idea because we know that people with that condition often withdraw from things that are important in their lives [like] personal relationships and areas of personal achievement – hobbies or professions. We wanted to highlight these 2 keys area – family and personal achievement.”

When it came to plotting each ad, Depend made the dramatic decision to feature a woman who uses Depends to remain visible as a professional and a man (in another ad) who relied on Depends so that he can spend quality time with his son and grandson.

It’s rare to see marketers avoid the temptation to show a midlife women as granny, or wife. Kimberly-Clark did the opposite, but not until it tested this concept of flipping customary expectations on their head. As Boulden said, it turned out that “women related well to the female spot but they also felt warmly about the men’s spot. Even though they gravitated to the [female] spot.”

Finally, the campaign exhibits a new kind of transparency and directness in speaking to Vibrant Women. As Boulden told me Kimberly-Clark is trying to reframe its category. “We are trying to highlight some of the transparency of the issue, away from the taboo of a stigmatized category and more about normalcy – trying to portray characters as more modern and relatable.”

I spend a lot of time telling marketers that to engage Boomer women you should do the following:

• Let women themselves tell you about their lives and needs
• Undercut the stereotypes that usually limit portrayals of women – it will make women pay more attention to your message
• Use straightforward language and images of how your product or service will enhance their lives

With its new campaign, the Depend brand – a market leader that could have afforded to do things the old way – led the way by using all the best practices for engaging real Boomer women.

Let me know if you agree.