Paper-based CPG
giant Kimberly-Clark (K-C) -- just months away from an expected Q4 closing of its $40+ billion deal to acquire consumer health leader Kenvue -- reported global Q2 revenues of $4.2 billion, up just
0.6% year-over-year.
In prepared remarks for analysts, K-C Chaiman-CEP Mike Hsu cited a “pressurized consumer environment” as contributing to the sluggish performance. Other
factors, the company said, included its exit from the private label diaper business in the U.S. and false social media allegations in China about the quality of some of its diaper brands.
In
North America specifically, President-COO Russ Torres also pointed to changes in retailer inventories (e.g., large-size packages of diapers and training pants in “club” stores like Costco)
and the impact of a fire at one of the company’s distribution centers. But, he noted, “demand across our categories has remained relatively stable” and “we remain on track for
another strong year.”
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Torres, boasting that K-C won eight Cannes Lions awards in June, called out several recent marketing campaigns.
Explaining that the company is
“building brand love by authentically engaging in timely, cultural moments,” he described how Huggies diapers last month latched on to a viral photo which showed soccer great Lionel
Messi bathing his World Cup finals rival Lamine Yamal – when the latter was a baby back in 2007.
“Our Huggies marketing team identified the connection to a universal
parenting truth: ‘they grow up so fast,’” Torres recalled. “In under an hour, we created and published a simple Huggies social post inviting consumers into the moment, and they responded immediately, right before the big game.” The result:
“nearly 1.5 million views without paid spending, the most-engaged-with Huggies U.S. organic post of all time and our second-most shared.”
Viva’s "Messmakers' campaign,
launched in Q3 2025, has helped the paper towel brand grow market share for five consecutive quarters and to rise 80 basis points in Q2 y-o-y, Torres said.
Torres also pointed out
a couple of product innovations launched in Q2:
- A “next-generation” Huggies Skin Essentials diaper, enriched with zinc oxide, that’s “clinically proven to help
reduce irritation.”
- An “upgraded” Little Snugglers line, with a FastAbsorb system providing “some of our most innovative features, including all around blowout
blocking, leak protection, and gentle protection for the most delicate skin.”
More product innovations can be expected in the years ahead, including those resulting from
an “Alternative Natural Fiber Innovation Program” announced on Monday, which Hsu called an “exciting moonshot" that that will “change the category forever.”
He said the technology has four key advantages:
- For consumers, it “pushes the softness versus strength frontier. It will enable us to make a superior tissue.”
- “It’s better for the planet: a farm crop that's going to replace natural forest fiber in our production mix. it's also super land efficient. grown on a fraction of
the acreage (as wood pulp) to source an equivalent volume.
- “It grows only in arid conditions, and because of that, it's a water miser. “
- “It’s good
economics.”
On the latter point, Flavia Moura wrote in The Business Model Analyst that while “wood pulp is a commodity anyone can buy, which is precisely why store
brands can undercut Cottonelle and Scott, a fiber that only one company is legally allowed to use changes that.”
The move, she wrote, allows K-C to “stop competing on what
you do to the fiber, and own the fiber.”