The voice of “girl power” behind Kimberly-Clark’s U by Kotex brand of feminine protection established an authentic brand personality, with a bold and empowering attitude. That tonality resonated strongly with a small, socially-aware segment of the 18 to 24-year-old target audience of millennials, capturing 18.2% of the $2.8 billion category. The business challenge: build brand preference by a larger group of more mainstream millennials more concerned with protection to increase sales and market share.

The brand underpinning needed to evolve from “it gets me” to “it gets what matters to me.” Proprietary research revealed something that mattered a lot. The consequence of failed protection was ruined underwear. With millennials spending more on fashion undies than any other generation in history, that added up to a whopping loss of $3 million dollars a year.

Rather than play to leakage fears, the communications strategy was to position U by Kotex as an empathetic brand that understood the emotional and financial stakes of protecting a substantive wardrobe investment.

To introduce 3D Capture Core, an innovative leak prevention technology to its Ultra Thin pads, a whimsically creative platform was born. Save the Undies was based on a premise to which every woman who has ever ruined a favorite pair of pricey undies due to faulty feminine care products could relate.

It was both mantra and rallying cry for a wildly engaging, socially-integrated program that generated a 21% increase in brand trust, which translated into a 20% sales increase – more than double the goal.

• To launch Save the Undies, we recruited socially active UnderWarriors to share photos, tweets and blogs about a NYC “protest” event, where brand advocates carried banners and distributed products.

• An hour-long Save the Undies Twitter Party for nearly 900 women generated 15,000+ tweets.

• We encouraged our 30,000 UnderWarriors to generate millions of brand-focused likes, re-posts and shares by:

o Pulsing out rich content: including an infographic about the number of undies sacrificed each year, a video and links to the Save the Undies microsite featuring quizzes and online games.

o Activist events: 50 UnderWarriors created local protest events, hitting the streets with “Save the Undies” gear and samples to engage other young women to join the movement, generating 11,000 social conversations

o Sampling: The most active UnderWarriors distributed samples to 7,500 women and generated more favorable online conversation (165 blog posts, 14,515 social posts and 2,150 photos uploaded).

Conversation drove commerce!

• Between May and August 2014, sales of the new U by Kotex product increased 20%, versus the same period in 2013 – more than double the original goal!

• Positive brand sentiment increased 21%

• The campaign significantly increased brand trust:

o 21% of women surveyed said U by Kotex is a brand they “trust more than others” and “works better than other brands”

o 16% said the brand represents “protection I can trust”

• Significant increases resulted in favorability, purchase intent and willingness to recommend among our 30,000 UnderWarriors

• Crowdtap’s research showed that within the #TeamUbyKotex crowd there was:

o 10.85% increase in brand familiarity

o 12.56% increase in purchase intent

o 18.82% increase in favorability

o 51.95% increase in net promoter score million positive earned social impressions

Most important: sales increased 20% -- more than double the goal.