• by Aaron Baar , March 30, 2012

Getting people to try -- let alone admit they need -- a product to help with their incontinence is an uphill battle. On Friday, Kimberly Clark’s Depend brand launched an extensive marketing effort to get people to try their new “Real Fit” (for men) and "Silhouette" (for women) products, even if they don’t need them. 

On Monday, Depend sets out on the “Great American Try On,” to showcase that the new products are so similar to “regular” underwear that celebrities and athletes can wear them without being embarrassed or having to manage their days any differently. 

The campaign is intended to show the product “is not a diaper, it’s underwear, Mark Cammarota, Depend brand director at Kimberly-Clark, tells Marketing Daily. “We think this campaign will certainly do that,” he says. “And to show people who are younger wearing the product, hopefully [that] will overcome some of the barriers in [addressing incontinence].”

In two separate television advertisements that make their debut on Monday, actress Lisa Rinna and football stars Clay Matthews, DeMarcus Ware and Wes Welker try on the product in exchange for a charitable donation. In the ad featuring Rinna, a spokesman challenges her to wear the briefs on the red carpet (even though she “doesn’t need them”) under her glamorous dress. (Rinna’s husband, Harry Hamlin, makes an appearance in the ad, impressed by his wife’s figure after she puts them on.) In the other ad, the football stars at first decline to put on the briefs, but do so “for charity.” They’re then shown going through their athletic drills while wearing the briefs. 

“If it was just an ordinary person, it wouldn’t generate the same attention,” Cammarota says of the approach to use celebrities in the ads. “It’s not that big a deal [to wear the briefs], and these celebrities stepping forward shows that. And they were happy to do it for a good cause.”

In exchange for trying on the products, the Depend brand donated $150,000 to Dress for Success, a charity supported by Rinna to provide job skills tools and interview suits to disadvantaged women, and $75,000 to The V Foundation for Cancer Research, which funds prostate cancer research. 

The prostate cancer donation is particularly important, because many men don’t believe incontinence is a problem they may encounter. “A lot of guys don’t think about these products,” Cammarota says. “They think of it as a women’s issue.”

Along those lines, Kimberly-Clark will also be airing a video featuring Matthews, Ware and Welker to raise prostate cancer awareness beginning this week, Cammorata says. Elsewhere in the campaign, K-C has set up a dedicated Web portal, where people can request a sample to try on and give feedback. For those who provide feedback, the company will donate more money to Dress For Success or The V Foundation.

To help further the causes of the charities, the Kimberly-Clark Foundation will donate an additional $75,000 to each charity bringing the Depend brand’s total charitable contribution to $375,000.