Kim and Khloe Kardashian examine boxes of U by Kotex.
U by Kotex, which launched last month in the US, has started the next phase of the campaign featuring reality television stars the Kardashian sisters, Kim and Khloe. I’ve seen two press releases about this so far today. The sisters and their mother, Kris Jenner, star in a new “Getting Real With the Kardashians” video series online.
It’s very unusual for celebrities to appear in femcare ads. Although there are a few well known cases of early career femcare ads (Cheryl Tiegs, Susan Dey, and Cybill Shepherd all appeared in print ads before achieving fame in other arenas, and Courteney Cox, later of Friends fame, holds the distinction of being the first person to utter the word “period” in an American television ad for a menstrual product), the only celebrities that have promoted menstrual products after becoming well-known are gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Cathy Rigby, and actor Brenda Vacarro. All took some heat for it.
The cycle of fame today is much shorter, and arguably narrower. By narrower, I mean that a star might be famous to a smaller segment of the population; to put it another way, I’m not really familiar with the Kardashian sisters and I’m not sure exactly why they’re famous. But I’m not the target demographic of U by Kotex, either. The products are aimed at young women ages 14-24, who presumably ARE part of the audience reached by the Kardashians.
I’ll be interested to see how this affects their careers, and how fans react. Any fans of the Kardashian sisters care to comment?
Last year Serena Williams appeared in an ad for Kotex in their Mother Nature campaign, both in print and on TV. It got extra press after she mouthed off to a line judge during a tournament and time was spent reconsidering whether the ads would be used. They were: https://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/serena-williams-takes-her-temper-out-in-tampax-ads/19171199/
My bad. It was Tampax.
D’oh! I knew that – I wrote about Serena Williams in the Tampax campaign here and here, and Chris mentioned it here.
“Who are the Kardashians and why do they have a TV show?” I asked my downstairs neighbor.
Her thorough reply was as follows, “Their father was really rich and now all three of his daughters are trying to run a chain of boutiques together. They’re basically famous for being rich socialites and the reality show is a big hit because one of them is pregnant, one of them is dating Reggie Bush, and they are dumb and trashy.”
I then asked my neighbor who Reggie Bush was.
When I initially saw this post my mind reeled. The Kardashians are famous for being outrageous and sometimes trashy, but they are famous. The Kotex ads will probably be seen as another outrageous thing that those crazy Kardashian sisters did to promote themselves and their stores. I’m more interested in why Kotex choose them.
The use of Serena Williams in the Tampax ads made more sense to me. She is a famous for being fashionable and powerful. I can see why Tampax would want to align themselves with that, especially in their marketing to girls and their mothers.
One has to wonder what image Kotex is going for. The other ads in this campaign seem aimed at the consumer who is wise to the lack of logic in conventional femcare advertising. In that way the ads are reminiscent of Sprite’s ads from the mid to late nineties in which they openly mocked their celebrity spokespeople as well the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign whose theme was, “By our beauty products because we’re not selling them to you as beauty products.” How the Kardashians fit into the US launch of U and Kotex’s image readjustment is currently a mystery to me but I’m sure we’ll all be watching to see what happens.
I think it’s pretty easy to understand why Kotex would want the Kardashians to promote U, and why a young audience would listen to them. They endorse weight loss drugs, Carl’s Jr. salads, and have a show where they go shopping, get sonograms, and cry after they come home from terrible dates, all while making sexy face at the camera. Basically, they don’t seem to get embarrassed easily, and that is key when it comes to what we’ve been taught to think of as whisper and wink situation. They aren’t smart enough or strong enough to be seen as off-putting militant feminists encouraging women to claim their bodily functions as beautiful, but they are pretty enough to be “forgiven” for admitting that they, too, like, you know, menstruate, duh.
A lot of Kardasian hate here, but i think part of the reason they were chosen and chose to do the ad is because they are so open with themselves, their family, and I guess the world. They are popular at least partly because they appear very earnest and fun loving. If you have ever seen the show, they do not shy away from talking about poop, sex, menstruation, or childbirth. Their family is very close. One sister had their very moving child birth filmed and shown on national tv. I seriously doubt this will hurt them because being open and honest (or as seemingly honest) is part of their image.
Also one of the Kardashian sisters, Kourtney, was very outspoken about how her pregnancy resulted from missed birth control pills. I was interested in this because following that story being all over the gossip mags and the net, there was a real push in the media for long-acting hormonal methods over the pill, with the central rationalization being that women can forget the pill, or do not like to have to remember to take it each day. Articles appeared that criticized the pill but led women to look at the injection or implant instead. It was one of those moments that seems ‘planned’ – the message was being confirmed all over. It was like a negative feeling towards the pill had been sensed in the air and to counter the effect of this all of a sudden stories that sort-of criticized the pill appeared but they all concluded with promotion of long-acting hormonal methods. It looked to me like some good PR set-up – taking the potential problem and spinning it as quickly as possible.
As far as them promoting U goes – that’s a big deal. They’ll make it sell.