Client: Kimberly-Clark
In a diaper category where functional performance had become table stakes, Huggies faced declining retention beyond early babyhood despite strong new-parent acquisition. To deepen emotional loyalty, our research uncovered that today’s Millennial and Gen Z parents are increasingly concerned about their children’s emotional well-being and rely on audio as a trusted part of daily routines, while science shows that a parent’s heartbeat is one of the most powerful sources of comfort for babies. Grounded in this insight, we created Sound of a Hug, a category-first, media-led, digital innovation that transformed a parent’s heartbeat into a personalized baby sleep track across web, Amazon Alexa, Spotify, TikTok, and trusted parenting voices. Designed as a daily-use experience rather than a message, Sound of a Hug embedded Huggies into bedtime routines, driving strong engagement, 100 percent positive sentiment, millions of earned impressions, and significant lifts in unaided recall and message association, redefining what it means to deliver on the promise of hugs by building a new foundation for emotional loyalty and shaping how parents nurture their babies’ well-being.
