I feel like we've come a long way since our first discussion about the Huggies "Dads: The Ultimate Test" campaign. I had the priviledge to be invited to speak with the Huggies folks again, along with members of their advertising agency and several other dads of note including Chris Routly of Daddy Doctrines, Al Watts of DaddysHome.org, Vincent DiCaro of the National Fatherhood Initiative, Doug French of Laid Off Dad and Dad 2.0, and Matt Schneider of the NYC Dads Group. While I can't share everything that we talked about in one blog post, I would like to summarize for you and highlight some of the new spots that Huggies has put out since I last wrote about them.
It was so refreshing to have a major brand like Kimberly-Clark/Huggies take the time to listen to their customers. I can't say enough about their willingness to engage in conversation and actually take our suggestions seriously. To summarize the meeting, from the dads' side of the table, we basically just asked for Huggies to continue to portray reality in their advertising. Put their products in real situations with real moms and dads. We did ask them to show more moms and dads working together since parenting is typically a two-person battle. We asked them to get even more involved in dad-related events and charitable giving. We also asked that the conversation about how fathers are portrayed not end here. We want to keep moving forward. We want to help dissolve old stereotypes that drive a wedge into families instead of bring them together. We want to see more positive male role models in media and advertising, and we want to see parents working together on a more frequent basis.
Are we asking too much? I don't think so. It is going to take a company with the size and influence of Kimberly-Clark to make any headway in the "dadvertising" arena when it comes to changing stereotypes. If they are willing to listen to us, then we are going to ask for it all because we don't know if we will get this kind of opportunity again. We might as well lay it all out on the table.
It is very easy to see that the latest round of Huggies ads have really solidified their original intent for this campaign - using real dads with their babies to test Huggies products in real life situations. Here are a few of the latest spots.
Mall Walking Dads
