Monday, March 06, 2006

Coming to a Bathroom Near You...

So apparently the kid's bathroom department is a growing market.

Kimberly-Clark is a multi-million dollar corporation that is continuously shifting their focus more and more towards children and their bathroom habits.

Kimberly-Clark's journey into the children's bathroom market started with baby wipes that double as moist towelettes for kids just starting to be potty trained. The company's latest innovation is kid toilet paper that has small paw prints on every piece of paper and a puppy or kitten on every 5th sheet to show kids what's the right amount to tear off. Parents are excited about the product claiming that their children use too much toilet paper and need to be taught how to use their resources more economically.

Kimberly-Clark will basically go without any competition into the emerging market. Their main rival, Proctor and Gamble, will continue in the competitive market for baby wipes but have yet to develop a children's toilet paper of their own. Will going without competition into a new market help Kimberly-Clark to develop its own prices or will the present cost of "regular" toilet paper set a guideline?

I wonder what the actual demand is for kid's toilet paper. Is this a market that's about to boom? Or is Kimberly-Clark about to spend too much money developing a product with virtually no audience?

2 comments:

Claire Reintgen said...

I believe that depending on where this product is marketed, this product could be a hit or miss for the Kimberly-Clark company. In the US I believe this product will be more successful than perhaps in Europe. In the United States where the perchase of novelty items, living over your means and spoiling your child is more prevelent more sales of this perticular product may occur. This demonstates the obvious rule that a seller needs to recognize where the demand for their product is.

steph said...

I also agree there could be positive and negative fallout for Kimberly-Clark on this product. Depending on how the product is marketed and publicized, will determine the hype it creates and how many consumers will actually buy it. I can see many people with small children in there house trying this product out, but for how long the "fad" will last is to be determined. I do agree it has its appeal, as its another incentive to get children potty trained and get them excited about it. If parents are having a hard time getting their child to use the bathroom, they might feel this product will be a helpful tool and therefore be a constant consumer. The price needs to be moderately close to regular toliet paper or else customers will feel there is no need to spend that much extra money for some "paw prints". They need to watch how this product sells to determine whether to raise or lower the prices of this new toliet paper. That could be the biggest thing to make it sell or flop in the market today.