Based on the medical hugging insight, we created No Baby Unhugged: the world’s first initiative to partner with hospitals to 1) help all moms understand the power of hugging her own baby immediately after birth and 2) help all babies get the hugs they need, even if moms can’t be there to give them.

Our initiative educates moms on the benefits of hugging her baby immediately after birth, while providing her with tools to help her hug. More importantly, No Baby Unhugged provides funding and other kinds of assistance to hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units wanting to create volunteer hugging programs for their sick or preemie babies.

With the reality that most first-time moms aren’t actively engaged in exploring diapers, the challenge is to get her to consciously choose Huggies as she’s making spontaneous or planned purchases throughout pregnancy. 3rd trimester is the sweet spot since baby’s arrival is fast-approaching.

No Baby Unhugged is in its second year in Canada, and in its infancy in 28 other countries:

Integrating Multi-Platform Paid Media with PR and Hospital Initiatives: The close relationship between the agency partners allowed for agile activity, message amplification and content creation, which worked towards building brand equity for Huggies.

Balancing Scale and Contextual Relevance: We play in the online space where she spends most of her time in order to educate her on the power of skin-to-skin hugs and acquire her into the loyalty database. Precision targeting to hone in on her was applied to establish credibility for Huggies through relevance and timeliness.

Introducing Hug Plan: It was developed to help moms ensure hospitals adhere to their skin-to-skin wishes following birth. For the launch, a first-to-market custom “Hugs” magazine was distributed in one of Canada’s top parenting and pregnancy magazine network. It can also be easily found online.

• Global adoption of No Baby Unhugged by 28 countries.

•5 No Baby Unhugged Hospitals, with many more coming in Canada and abroad.

• Over 54,000 No Baby Unhugged Moms have joined our Canadian initiative online.

• The world’s first Hug Plan, an extension of a mom’s own birth plan, has already been sought out by more than 13,000 moms.

• The new #1 diaper choice of Canadian hospitals, a claim previously owned by Pampers prior to No Baby Unhugged.

• $2.76 return for every dollar invested.

• 2.3 Newborn share points stolen from Pampers.

• Huggies Newborn diaper $ volume grew 19.2% (vs the 10% objective) from the launch of No Baby Unhugged.

• Sales increases for newborn diapers were around 2x higher than other diaper sizes.

• More than 3x growth in database sign-ups among new moms.

Cannes Lions believes that creativity is a force for business, for change and for good in the world.

Huggies’ No Baby Unhugged program strives not only to increase awareness in the soon-to-be mom’s mind when it comes to diaper purchase, but to influence her to sign up to become a No Baby Unhugged mom – one who learns about the power of hugs and contributes to an initiative that helps other newborn babies in need.

This Canadian-born initiative with its breadth and depth has moved the needle in sales and brand perception, and has inspired other countries to adopt it.

Based on the above insights, the media strategy focused on these areas:

Omni-Channel Approach: The multiple touchpoints (TV, digital, social, print, PR) with emotional and functional messaging work together to build brand equity. A balance of scale and precision targeting within contextually relevant environments were leveraged to reach her in “lean in” (i.e. actively researching) and “lean back” (i.e. being entertained) moments. Overall, “low effort” tactics were used to drive awareness in a category that is not typically high-involvement.

Digital: Being in her space was key to reach the Millennial mom, who spends 19 hours online weekly with more than half of that time dedicated to social and online video.

Conquesting: Birth rates are almost flat in Canada, so the ways to grow market share is through increased usage and conquesting Pampers moms. Also, running activity throughout the year ensures top-of-mind awareness especially since pregnancy is not limited by seasonality.

Prior to the launch of No Baby Unhugged two years ago, Pampers had almost twice the market share of Huggies. Research told us if we could inspire pregnant moms to purchase our diapers first, they would continue to purchase us for life. Our objective was to chip away at Pampers’ stronghold by making our brand emotionally relevant for pregnant moms.

Not only was it important for Huggies to grow by stealing share in a market where birth rates are almost flat, we have to battle with the notion that diapers are unimportant “pee and poo catchers”.

Simultaneously, a new idea was quickly gaining support in the world of pediatric science: hugging was becoming one of the most important ways a mom could help ensure the healthy development of her baby at birth (i.e. stabilizing vital signs, building immune systems, promoting weight gain, warding off chronic illness and improving brain development).