By Daniel Hedger

Baby care brands have long relied on sentimentality and functional overload when talking to parents. Communicado tried a different approach and found that clarity can be more powerful than cuteness. 

As a dad of two young children, getting to work on a nappy brand is eye-opening. It’s an opportunity to get under the hood and see what drives the category, as well as a chance to interrogate some of the clichés of baby care messaging.

When you first have a child, you’re in that fog of early parenthood, where you’re so overwhelmed by all the changes. You’re sleep deprived, you’re barely able to think straight – and suddenly a lot of brands want to talk to you.

And it’s not just nappy brands, it’s every kind of baby product: cots, prams, high chairs, car seats, baby clothes, you name it. And you’ve probably been targeted since you announced that you’re expecting on Instagram.

 The brands know you’re only in the category for a short time and they don’t want to miss their chance of getting you early. It can be very overwhelming for parents and carers, so many of us put our heads down and go with what we know.

Eventually, of course, the fog lifts and you start to gain more confidence. You feel like you’re getting the hang of this parenting thing. That’s when you look beyond what the hospital recommended and make some choices for yourself.

One of the big baby care clichés is overdoing functional messaging. It’s understandable – brands want to highlight what makes them different — but it often ends up becoming clutter, so the message doesn’t get through.

Cutting through functional clutter

Our client BabyLove recognised that there had to be a different way. For our recent Nappy Pants campaign, we looked at where the opportunity was to respond to a real pain point for parents and carers and highlight the ultimate benefit.

We know that as toddlers grow, changing them using traditional tab nappies becomes much harder. So we took a step back and asked, what is the actual benefit to parents in moving from traditional tab nappies to nappy pants? Well, they’re just easier.

 Now, true, that ease comes from some functional product features – specifically, a 360-degree stretchy waistband makes Nappy Pants easier to pull up while a toddler is standing and tearaway side seams mean they can be removed just as easily.

 But what parents really need to know before anything else is that this product is just going to make their lives that little bit easier.

 From there, the creative approach became clear: keep it simple, keep it kind. We needed to cut through the clutter and show parents we understood what they were going through, rather than hammering them with functional messaging.

Our creative team landed on the line ‘Easy Peasy, Changing’s Easy’, which reflects both the down-to-earth nature of the brand as well as the personality of the Bluey characters that appear on Nappy Pants themselves.

Real parenting, no pressure

Another category cliché is the overly sentimental or lofty depictions of parenting. That can put pressure on parents and carers because they feel they’re not living up to an imagined ideal.

Instead of idealised imagery, we tapped into something real that can help our audience. We built our campaign around common behavioural cues that might signal the need to move from traditional tab nappies into Nappy Pants.

Our campaign voiceover asks, “When it comes to change time, does your toddler do the sprint? Or perhaps they do the wriggle? Or maybe they’re a fan of the twist?”

It’s about recognising real-life moments, not imagined or idealised ones. We never want to talk down to parents or make them feel like they aren’t capable.

This means showing kindness both in how we message – because they don’t have the time or energy to sort through a bunch of proof points – and also in how we depict parenting.

And so this is the approach we took for the Nappy Pants campaign, both in our BVOD film and our social content. 

We focused on simplicity, clarity and empathy, rather than sentimentality or unattainable ideals.

In advertising, clichés can be shortcuts to get an idea across, but that can only get you so far. Part of cutting through the clutter is having a point of view on category clichés and asking whether we’re helping or just adding to the noise.

 

Daniel Hedger is an Integrated Strategist at Communicado. He’s passionate about the power of brands to drive effectiveness and behaviour change across diverse categories, including FMCG, beauty, health & fitness, insurance broking, not-for-profit, energy and travel.

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