Kimberly-Clark Huggies to Respond to Pampers Premium

Case Type: marketing; business competition, competitive response.
Consulting Firm: ZS Associates first round full time job interview.
Industry Coverage: household goods, consumer products.

Case Interview Question #01350: The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American consumer goods company headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. It specializes in a wide range of personal health, consumer health, and personal care and hygiene products. One of the most revolutionary products to come out on the market was the company’s disposable Pampers diaper, first test-marketed in 1961.

Huggies is the brand name of a disposable diaper marketed by American consumer goods company Kimberly-Clark. Huggies were first test marketed in 1968. P&G’s Pampers brand is the current market leader, but fierce competitors like Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies brand are also constantly improving their products.

I see that you worked for Procter & Gamble in product management for Pampers Premium. Can you describe the market position of your product for me? What was the most significant contribution you made to the product? Assume you were VP of marketing for Huggies, the biggest competitor of Pampers, how would you respond?

Possible Answers:

1. Case Overview

This is a really typical resume-related case interview question. Not only does the interviewer ask for details about one of your past projects, she asks what you would have done had your position or the circumstances been different.

It may not be possible to prepare for every possible scenario related to every item on your resume, but consulting interviewers highly recommend that you go through every item on your resume before your interviews and jot down the basic outline of what happened. Nothing looks quite as bad as being unable to recall the superhuman feat to which a specific line item on your resume refers.

2. Interview Transcript

Interviewer: I see that you worked for Procter & Gamble in product management for Pampers Premium. Can you describe the market position of your product for me?

Candidate: Well, Pampers Premium is the number-two premium brand of diapers, behind Huggies Supreme. Both brands are the Rolls-Royce of diapers: thin and ultra-absorbent with a cloth-like cover and reusable Velcro closures, costing up to 40% more than regular diapers. P&G has invested heavily in the Pampers Premium product, allocating a sizable portion of its annual R&D budget to the product each year.

However, despite the product’s “technical” advantages, it remains stuck in the number-two position behind Huggies, a Kimberly-Clark product that has enjoyed the benefits of an advertising and promotional blitz over the past 2 years. Heavy print advertising including coupons coupled with retailer incentives have propelled Huggies Supreme solidly into the number-one slot.

Note: In this answer, the candidate immediately answers the interviewer’s question. He also gives a nice synopsis of why the Pampers Premium brand is considered a “Rolls-Royce” of diapers, as well as a good description of the number-one brand and chief competitor Huggies Supreme.

Interviewer: What was the most significant contribution you made to the product?

Candidate: While I was at P&G, I helped assess a targeted consumer promotion in the midwestern United States. Focusing on maternity hospitals, the promotion included free samples and coupons for Pampers Premium packaged in a small diaper bag emblazoned with the slogan “The Best Way to Pamper Your Baby”. These bags were given to all departing maternity patients over a 6-month period in ten midwestern cities.

I was responsible for determining the effectiveness of this campaign by determining the “lift” (the increase in sales) in the ten targeted markets during and after the promotion. This required heavy data analysis and detailed utilization of Nielsen data sources, as well as field interviews of consumers and retailers.

My analysis showed that this targeted promotional campaign provided significant lift (5% to 15%). My field research suggested that new mothers are a malleable decision-making unit and will purchase the products they believe their doctors and hospitals endorse, remaining fairly loyal to those products. Both the quantitative and qualitative research proved the effectiveness of this promotion, and I recommended that it be rolled out in more cities as soon as possible.

Note: After describing the market position, the candidate immediately moves on to the next part of the question: his most significant contribution to the product. Never mind that the actual contribution might or might not have been of earth-shattering importance to the product.

Interviewer: Assume you were VP of marketing for Huggies, the biggest competitor of Pampers, how would you respond?

Candidate: If I were the VP of marketing for Huggies, I would respond quickly. I would do a lift analysis of Pampers Premium over the time frame of the promotion (Nielsen data can be purchased by anyone), and once I was convinced of the effectiveness of the promotion, I would attempt to lock in agreements with maternity hospitals in other parts of the country.

Interviewer: Now let’s go back to your job at P&G. Knowing that your competitor Kimberly-Clark Huggies would respond quickly, what would you recommend P&G do?

Candidate: I recommend that P&G act quickly to capitalize on its first-mover advantage, to neutralize any head-to-head threat by Kimberly-Clark.

Note: The answer is clear and to the point. It effectively conveys the required information in a manner that isn’t too specific to be understood by an interviewer who may or may not have the dirt on the diaper industry.

3. Possible Bad Answers

Interviewer: I see that you worked for Procter & Gamble in product management for Pampers Premium. Can you describe the market position of your product for me?

Candidate: Pampers Premium is the top-of-the-line P&G diaper. It is meant for the consumer who believes she cannot spend too much on the comfort of her baby, and it has lots of bells and whistles that make it cost a lot more than the regular Pampers product. It has Velcro closures and a soft outer cover, which customers seem to like because it reminds them of cloth diapers. Pampers has actually been hurt by the recent resurgence in the usage of cloth diapers as a more environmentally conscious alternative to disposables and has spent a lot of money researching environmental impacts of both. They found that it is true that disposable diapers take a long time to degrade in landfills, but the bleaches and detergents used in the laundering of cloth diapers also have a detrimental effect on the environment. — All very nice information, but completely unrelated to the question.

Interviewer: What was the most significant contribution you made to the product?

Candidate: Anyway, I crunched the numbers on a promotion for Pampers done through hospitals, and found that it was a good way to target new diaper users.

Interviewer: Assume you were VP of marketing for Huggies, the biggest competitor of Pampers, how would you respond?

Candidate: If I were Huggies, I would probably cut price, just to steal market share away from Pampers.

Note: When this candidate finally gets around to answering the question, the response is totally insufficient.