If I had a baby, I'd use Huggies
Huggies understands today's moms. At least the inspired mothers with some business savvy and an idea to make life better for other mothers. Its MomInspired Grant Program offers grant money to mothers with a unique baby or child care product idea that meets an parenting need. Personally, I find it refreshing that Huggies didn't go with the now ubiquitous "submit your photo or video" UGC contests. It shows that Kimberly Clark is looking beyond the low-hanging fruit for the social responsibility possible in social media.
- Huggies recently launched the MomInspired Grant Program that will fund entrepreneurial mothers across the United States to help get their child-care business ideas off the ground. Kimberly Clark, Huggies' parent company, is offering a total of $250,000 in grant money, with up to $15,000 for each individual idea. In order to be considered for a grant, mothers must submit an application online by June 9, outlining "a unique baby or child care product idea that addresses an unmet parenting need," according to the company's press release. The program is explained through a dedicated microsite, and community word is being spread through Facebook and Twitter.
Kimberly Clark is on a mission to innovate its product line. "We do a five year business cycle and we've identified innovation that takes us beyond the core—diapers and wipes—into something new that defines us a baby care brand," says Paljieg. Part of the research involved talking to online mommy influencers, one of whom just happened to be Maria Bailey, a former Fortune 100 executive, founder of BlueSuitMom.com and a mother of four. "Maria is at the hub of a social media environment where moms are innovating with their own businesses," says Paljieg. That insight, combined with an interest in the way the Silicon Valley venture-capital market sourced innovation, convinced him that Huggies could both inspire its target market and foster its own innovation by working to enable entrepreneurial moms across the country.
The more research Paljieg and his team did, the more they learned about the challenges that this small but influential sector of moms faced. He cites research conducted by Babson College showing that even though women in the United States are credited with starting businesses at nearly twice the rate of men, only about 3 percent of these female businesses get VC funding. Building on that research, Huggies then commissioned its own study of moms and found that the toughest challenge faced by those who wanted to start their own business was access to capital and financial resources. These moms didn't need VC-level funding. Most said what they really needed was small seed/start-up money, along with mentorship.
Yet even if just a fraction of Huggies' target community actually engages with this initiative, and even if the entrepreneurial chance of success seems improbable, the project probably will be considered a success. That's because (as its name suggests) this campaign has as much to do with demonstrating Huggies' commitment to working moms as it does funding the next cool baby-care product. "I hope [all the moms out there] experience the recognition that they themselves are inventive so that they think 'Maybe I can't participate, but isn't this cool what Huggies is doing," say Paljieg.
For Huggies, it seems, social media, rather than necessity, may prove to be the mother of invention.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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