packaged goods

Summer's Eve Embarks On 'Listening Tour'

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Summer's Eve feminine hygiene products has embarked on a multi-market "listening tour" to gain insight into women's understanding of the role hygiene plays in their lives, both practically and emotionally.

The effort, which involves conducting focus groups and holding conversations with women nationwide, comes on the heels of a proprietary quantitative study of how women think and feel about their bodies. The results, it says, show that more than 40% of women misidentify the vagina on an anatomical diagram.

"That statistic alone was very surprising, but there is definitely more to come," Summer's Eve's senior brand manager Angela Bryant tells Marketing Daily. "The reality is that long-standing stigmas have kept women from talking, and they're looking for someone to celebrate the female body."

Insight from the study and listening tour will be used in resetting brand communication to better relate to today's woman's needs, she says.

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"We have a huge opportunity to break free from a long-standing stigma in our category and establish a more current, relevant role for Summer's Eve," Bryant says.

Earlier this year, parent company Fleet Laboratories, Inc. engaged integrated branding agency The Richards Group to develop a long-term strategy.

Upcoming marketing plans include new print and online advertising to be launched in the first quarter of 2011, with integrated television, print and digital creative and a body awareness campaign breaking next summer. While declining to detail specifics on the new creative, "the marketing path Summer's Eve will take will be in a voice women will relate to and respect," says a Richards Group spokesperson.

The listening tour includes Bryant, Steve Ruhf, Summer's Eve vice president of U.S. marketing and business development; agency brand management principal Rhonda Zahnen; brand planning director Sarah Hall; creative groups heads Tina Johnson and Terence Reynolds, and cause branding/public relations principal Stacie Barnett.

Women have been raised with mixed societal messages, says The Richards Group's Hall. They are: "Be confident and proud of being a woman," but "shy away from frank, open talk about your body."

"We found that while many women feel they are more than ready for the word 'vagina' to become culturally acceptable, the majority of women struggle with unresolved feelings that render the term itself difficult to use," Hall says.

1 comment about "Summer's Eve Embarks On 'Listening Tour' ".
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  1. Monica Bower from TERiX Computer Service, December 9, 2010 at 9:09 a.m.

    One would have to think that a 40% misidentification of the vagina might be something that would impact the directions on their packaging, at the very least. Where are people putting this stuff?

    Unfortunately what they seem to miss is that contemporary women are more and more resistant to the idea that an external product is necessary for a woman to be okay with herself. Who wants to get behind that message in 2010?

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