Reshaping Perceptions of When Training Begins
Carrying Huggies to its best sales performance in six years
Huggies Pull-Ups has helped parents through potty training since 1989. With the launch of Pull-Ups Explorers for babies as young as nine months, the brand needed parents to start using Pull-Ups much earlier, from their child's first steps.
With Alli, PMG profiled parents at each stage of the milestone journey and built The Big Kid Game, an interactive experience with characters for every stage. Social stickers and filters, influencer content, TV, and a physical game pack brought it to life, and the sign-ups created first-party data for retargeting.
Brand awareness rose 41%, and sales grew 26% year over year, the best Pull-Ups performance in six years.
Huggies® has been a trusted name in potty training since 1989 with its Pull-Ups® Trainers, designed for children around two years old. Looking to expand its product portfolio, Huggies® introduced Pull-Ups® Explorers, specifically designed for babies as young as nine months to support their early steps and adventures. Our challenge was to reimagine the brand and motivate parents to start using Pull-Ups® earlier in their child's development, starting from their first steps.
Bringing the Big Kid Journey to Life
A baby's first steps mark the beginning of a new adventure, filled with exploration, milestones, and new experiences. This pivotal moment was where we aimed to introduce Huggies® Pull-Ups® Explorers to parents.
To celebrate this journey, we created The Big Kid Game, an interactive experience designed to engage parents as their children reach key developmental milestones. We developed characters representing each stage: The Stand Up Kid, The Explorer, The Hotstepper, and The Potty King & Queen. To amplify this concept, we devised a through-the-line media strategy that would resonate with parents across multiple touchpoints.
Each milestone character had to reach the right parents at the right moment, so the team mapped those parents in Alli, PMG's operating system. Alli Audience Planner built a persona for each step of the milestone journey, from parents of brand-new walkers to those approaching potty training, so every character had a clear audience of its own. With those personas in hand, the team matched each character to its stage in the media plan before launch.
From Digital Fun to Real-World Play
To drive participation, we launched a social media campaign to capture each Big Kid milestone. We developed Giphy stickers and fun filters for Instagram and Snapchat, allowing parents to easily share their children's adventures with colorful, engaging digital enhancements.
We also produced video content featuring children hitting their milestones, which powered the campaign across the entire funnel, from awareness to purchase. By partnering with micro-influencers, we encouraged their followers to share their own children's milestones, expanding our reach and deepening engagement.
Our hero video ad, featuring a catchy song, ran across multiple platforms, including social media, online video, and broadcast TV. We amplified the campaign further with "sound-on" sing-along ads, boomerangs, and posts across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
To offer a tangible experience, we developed a physical Big Kid Game pack that parents could sign up for via the website. The pack included a poster, stickers, and a free sample, encouraging families to engage with the game at home. This activation allowed us to collect first-party data, enabling targeted retargeting via social media ads and email communications.
Social, online video, broadcast TV, and the pack signup flow all reported into one Alli view, which made it easy to compare how each milestone character performed from channel to channel. Working from that shared data in Alli Data, planners put more behind the moments and formats where parents were most engaged with the milestone story.
Engaging Families Through Milestones to Boost Brand Impact
41% Brand Awareness Increase 26% YoY Sales Growth 6 Years of Top Sales Performance
The Big Kid Game campaign successfully reinvigorated the Pull-Ups® brand by creating an engaging, interactive experience for both parents and children. By celebrating key developmental milestones, the campaign turned potty training from a stressful time into a positive, shared journey.
Brand awareness increased by 41%, and the campaign expanded Pull-Ups® reach into younger demographics, introducing the brand earlier in a child's development. The 26% year-over-year sales growth marked the best performance for Pull-Ups® in six years, showing that this strategy effectively resonated with consumers.
The multi-channel approach, which combined digital gamification, social media engagement, and influencer partnerships, not only boosted visibility but also created a community-driven sense of participation. Physical touchpoints, such as the Big Kid Game pack, deepened consumer engagement and enabled targeted retargeting, enhancing both engagement and brand loyalty. Alli Brand Equity tied brand and business signals together in real time, giving the team continuous visibility into how the milestone-driven strategy was moving both awareness (41% lift) and sales (26% growth) throughout the campaign.
