Our insight:

Babies move way more than their parents realise – over 3km* a day. *New York University

Our idea:

The World’s First Baby Marathon, from Huggies. A fresh, exciting, non-traditional way to bring this insight to life for moms, using data to prove why Huggies active baby diapers are the best choice for moving babies.

Our execution:

To prove just how much babies can move in a day, and to put the comfort and fit of Huggies diapers to the test, we chose four babies and gave them an audacious goal: 21 adult-length kilometers.

Our custom-made distance-tracking device:

Thanks to the data collected by the babies’ custom-designed distance-tracking devices, our little athletes were able to race one another on our online race course, in real time, from the comfort of their own homes. Their progress was packaged as a series of highlights videos, which were released across multiple digital platforms, until the first baby crossed the finish line 5.8 days later.

Our brief was to drive trial and differentiation of Huggies active baby diapers, based on the product benefits (comfort/fit). The range has special features that keep moving babies ultra-comfy, plus a choice of fit depending on one’s preference, making them a great choice for active babies.

To get moms’ attention, we needed to show them just how much their babies were moving in a day, thereby creating a real need for our product.

To do this we devised The World’s First Baby Marathon – a highly engaging and entertaining visualization of a group of 7- to 11-month old babies’ real-time movement data. This data made the impossible possible, as it allowed our babies to ‘race’ one another along a 21km online course, from the comfort of their own homes. All of which elicited an immediate and strongly positive conversation between the brand and our targeted audience, and ultimately resulted in a 28.9% increase in diaper sales.

• The marathon led to a 28.9% increase in diaper sales

• It generated a 29:1 return on investment

• There were over 8.4 million views of the campaign

• It resulted in over R2.4 million in earned PR

• The click-through rate was 194% higher than industry average

• Plus the marathon trended within 10 minutes of launch for 9 hours

We needed to convince moms that Huggies has the best diapers for moving babies. Our insight? Babies move way more than their parents realise – over 3km* a day (*New York University). We decided to bring this to life in the form of The World’s First Baby Marathon – a highly engaging and entertaining visualization of a group of 7- to 11-month old babies’ real-time movement data. Data that made the impossible possible: a 21km, real-time, online race between four babies, done in the comfort of their own homes. An execution which ultimately led to a 28.9% increase in sales.

We used data to execute our idea and prove how much babies move.

Our approach:

We wanted to snap our middle-income moms out of competitor-brand purchasing auto-pilot by creating a reconsideration trigger at the active baby stage. To do this, we wanted to: 1) catch them in a place they were spending most of their active media-consumption time, ie. online; and 2) show them something completely surprising about their baby, consequently making them aware of a need they never knew their baby had. We then wanted to position our diaper-range as the only answer to this need.

Data gathering/interpretation:

As nothing of its kind existed, our tracking device was specially created to gather a combination of accelerometer and gyroscope data and convert the crawling/toddling movements of the babies into kilometers. Over thirteen days we captured all the real-time movement data of our babies via this wearable tech, until each baby had completed the full 21km goal. We knew that collecting and interpreting this mind-blowing data was the key to showing (not just telling) our target market just how much distance their baby was covering every day. The data then informed the storytelling, outcome and ultimately the broadcast of the marathon.

Our situation/brief/objectives

In a market dominated by the competitor (where Huggies is the number two brand) we were tasked to drive trial of the Huggies active baby diaper range and show we have the best nappy for moving babies, in order to switch competitor-loyalists to our brand, and ultimately grow brand penetration amongst middle-income moms.

Our challenge

Once moms have bought into the rival diaper brand (usually at the newborn baby stage), they rarely reconsider their choice of brand. Instead they go into purchasing auto-pilot, and simply continue sizing up through their favourite brand’s range of products, until their child no longer requires diapers. We needed to snap them out of this and induce trial of our diapers, because trial in this market generally always leads to conversion.