Following a few “girls’ nights” and online forums, we realized that to reinvigorate Kotex we needed to lose the metaphors, girly language and secrecy. Our target audience, women 14-22, aren't their grandmother’s generation. What worked then doesn’t work now. We needed to get real about all things period and shine a light on a stale, out-of-touch category via a clever shopper marketing campaign that extended across every touchpoint and drove women down the path to purchase. We had to engage retailers to help us move fem care out of the aisle, and make it less embarrassing to shop for.

Retailers were so excited about our shopper marketing investment for U by Kotex, they wanted to make sure our products hit their shelves first. Overall ACV build greatly exceeded our objectives: we hit 85% ACV distribution in two weeks instead of twelve. Supervalu shipped displays overnight in a truck full of bananas! Kroger shipped promotional tins in a meat truck! We were the first feminine care brand to ever be displayed in cosmetics at CVS and Walgreens, and Walgreens displays in the beauty area had a 23% higher lift compared to the rest of store. As the girls would say: It was awesome!