Innovate bigger brands
Successful innovations and strong brands go hand in hand. Essity’s innovation strategy is to consistently deliver better, safer and more environmentally sound products and solutions to our customers and consumers. We intend to increase the pace and impact of our innovations as well as capitalize on global economies of scale and ensure that all product segments have a competitive and balanced portfolio of innovations.
Innovation efforts driven by commitment, care and courage
During 2017, Essity launched 41 innovations that simplify everyday life for people and strengthen Essity’s brands and market positions. Our innovations result from a well-established innovation process driven by committed employees in innovation teams worldwide that collaborate and share customer and consumer insights with the aim of improving quality of life for people.
Open innovations
As a natural part of our way of working with innovations, we embrace open innovations. We team up with the best players in the world and benefit from external resources and their knowledge to enable us to act fast in a world where trends and needs constantly change.
One example is our partnership with the organization Plug and Play, which offers a global innovation platform that joins startups with larger established companies. Collaborations like this give rise to new business concepts, shorten project lead times, enhance output and value, while being resource effective at the same time.
Digital solutions
To ensure that we deliver value-added innovations, we work in many different ways to understand the circumstances, expectations and needs of customers and consumers. For example, we communicate and interact with customers and consumers through social media and on our brands’ websites, including www.tena.com, www.libresse.com and www.libero.com. One example is the Libero Club, an online forum for families. More than 65% of all toddler parents and pregnant mothers in the Nordic region are members of the Libero Club. On the website www.libero.se/nya-liberoklubben, parents can read hundreds of articles about pregnancy and parenthood, share tips and get advice from Libero’s own midwife.
We are working to develop digital solutions that add value and improve service for our customers and consumers. In 2017, we entered into a partnership with Microsoft around the Internet of Things, to enhance our innovation efforts and create market-leading, digital hygiene and health products and solutions. For a number of years, Essity has been working with solutions based on big data and the Internet of Things. Examples of previously launched digital solutions include TENA Identifi™, an innovative digital technology that allows for better incontinence care efficiency, and Tork EasyCube™, a web-connected dispenser for such products as soap and paper hand towels, which provides real time information to janitors and facility managers to ensure that these products are replenished in time.
Relaunch of Libero Newborn, Libero Comfort and Libero Up&Go in Russia
Russia is a market with great growth potential with its nearly two million babies born every year. To grow Libero in Russia we have launched an improved product offering combined with a campaign to build trust and to differentiate us from our competition. At the same time as the product has been improved, we have also improved the pack design by making it easier for the shopper to find the right pack on the store shelf. We have invested a great deal into understanding market and consumers needs in Russia, to meet their demands. By performing extensive consumer tests – in terms of products, communication and packaging among our target group – we know our target audience are positive to what we offer.
New TENA Lady Pants Discreet designed by Ceri Williams
With the TENA Lady Pants Discreet launch, we took a major step to get as close as possible to real underwear. For the first time ever, we engaged a professional lingerie designer, Ceri Williams, who designs for top fashion brands, to contribute with her expertise and skill from the lingerie industry – resulting in a discreet and secure solution with enhanced underwear-like feeling strengthening the femininity of the users. TENA Lady Pants Discreet meets the consumer insights with respect to being discreet, having a good fit and feeling comfortable.
Innovative and impactful marketing
To ensure successful launches of our innovations and to strengthen our brands, we need to be innovative also in our marketing. Essity’s advertising campaigns are increasingly launched via social media. We want to create stories others like and share. In Feminine Care, under our Libresse and Bodyform brands for example, we are challenging the taboos surrounding menstruation. In 2017, we launched #bloodnormal, a film on digital and social media that use red liquid in place of blue to realistically depict periods. With more than 50 million impressions on social media, the campaign was successful in driving conversations and debate concerning menstruation. In the UK, parallel with this campaign, Essity arranged lectures at school led by experts from “The Self Esteem Team”. The lessons were free and addressed problems related to mental health and self-esteem, and openly talked about menstruation.
In 2017, we launched #bloodnormal, a film on digital and social media that use red liquid in place of blue to realistically depict periods.