Catostrphic Marketing and other Shitty Things

Luvs brand diapers is proudly proclaiming to have the newest and greatest feature in the world of disposable diapers. Blowout protection. For real, that's what they call it- blowout protection.
This prompted me to do a little research. The disposable diaper was created by a woman named Marion Donovan. She holds twenty patents, the disposable diaper being the one we would know her for today. It was only through dogged determination and grit that her invention ever became produced at all. Incredibly, the idea was turned down by every major manufacturer of the day and it wasn't until 1961- ten whole years after she had patented the idea that someone took an interest.

That someone was Victor Mills who was a well known product developer with with Proctor and Gamble and was the one to market the new disposable product as "Pampers." Mr. Mills was nobody's fool. He was an excellent marketer and had a prescient hand on the pulse of Americans' wants and needs. He is credited with shepherding into being such well-known household products as Ivory soap, Duncan Hine's cake mix and, from my perspective the most important of all these, Pringles potato chips.

Pringles are of a singular genius because they are synthesized (which is to say mixed and molded and baked) from potato flakes that are essentially waste product from the manufacturing process of other potato products in much of the same way Medium Density Fiber Board (MDF) and Oriented Strand Board (OSB) are made from cast off shavings of wood mixed with resin. The man literally created a salable product (a delicious one at that) out of waste. It's a good thing he retired before Soylent Green hit the theaters. That may have given him too many ideas.

But that is way far off the topic. Sorry to go all Modern Marvels on you, but we owe a lot to the "Clark Griswold's" of the world and they seldom achieve the notoriety they deserve. At least all eight of you will know the rest of the story.

Back to the blowout protection. Mrs. Donovan thought the reason why disposable diapers were such a worthy invention was they were a huge time saver for the American family (the mom), they were hygienic (used once and done), safer (no safety pins), and a damn might bit more likely to be operated properly by a man the once or twice a year it became necessary for a man take part in the messy parts of child rearing (that weekend the wife had the flu).

And she was right. But I am certain that Luvs is making a big mistake with this ad campaign as, from a layman's perspective, blowout protection ought to have been first and foremost on their mind way when they were developing their product! What else could possibly have been of higher importance on the punch list during the development meetings?

Back to the research. Luvs, the brand, was introduced in 1976 and was developed in part by an astronaut Kenneth Buell. Since babies are not equipped to give a whole lot of feedback on these types of things, vis a vis market research and the effectiveness of design, who better than an adult who in his profession had occasion to wear and use diapers (in space, I'm sure- I am not assailing Captain Buell's continence)?

So, the big difference with Luvs when they came out, from a marketing perspective anyway, was additional padding. The trend of fat lazy babies sitting in front of the T.V. had obviously begun by that time and Luvs was there to capture the obese glutinous baby market with their heavily padded husky diapers.But apparently, it was not until the year 2010, a full 34 years later (in my case, almost a lifetime) that they got around to blowout protection as a priority.

I can see where some innovations happen over a period of time. Like having specific fitted diapers for boys' and girls' to account for anatomical differences. Some years back one of the brands came out with resealable tabs, presumably to check the load and see if it needed attendance immediately or if you could stay to the end of the movie without destroying the diaper or the closure tab. These are good innovations, but all the while, I'm thinking chief among the core values of a product like this would be blowout prptection.

Luvs introducing and proudly marketing this as a feature is tantamount to Goodyear marketing their tires as "Goodyear tires keep your wheels from sparking while you drive down the road." No shit!

What could possibly be more important than blowout prevention on a diaper for god's sake? Leak guard is nice to have, but since you are basically telling me that all these years I have been lucky not to be on the receiving end of a shit storm from the infant or toddler in the shopping cart in front of me, a little pee isn't so concerning to me now! Hell, who doesn't get a little dribble every other time they have a pee anyway? I am saying the leak guard thing could have been put on the back burner, especially in light of the fact it took 34 years to solve the blowout thing!

I think Luvs has inadvertently let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and has as much as admitted to the shocking lack of readiness of our nation's diapers. Each day that has gone by has been a miracle that some sort of massive broad based systemic failure of baby diapers hasn't left our homes and places of business knee deep in reprocessed pureed peaches, or that a coordinated attack from extremist terror groups hasn't taken place that would spread shit all over the country, all at once.

This all brings to the fore something that is a much larger concern, something that nobody seems to want to talk about. As usual, I will have to be the one to say it. Babies are gross! Everything about a baby, a toddler or pretty much every human until they learn how to wash their hands without being prompted is disgusting. Based on my armchair observations that is a large percentage of the population! I've seen things, man! Bad things!

I have seen kids drag a piece of cheese all across the floor and eat it, or rather gum it to death. And I have seen same said babies give the gummy melted gooey legionnaire's infected cheese to their parent who smiles and says "thank you" and eats it! Oh. My. God! What is wrong with you people?

I watched a father, my age or younger, pick up his baby's pacifier off the floor at a commercial shopping center, put it in his mouth to "wash it off" and give it back to the baby! What the hell? First off, there is nothing in your mouth that is any better than what was on that floor and you just put that thing back in your baby's mouth. Second of all, that thing was on the floor, in a commercial place, where hundreds of people have tread since it was last sanitized- and you put it in your mouth. Last, (and most important) before it hit the floor that thing was in your baby's mouth, dude! Gross!

Babies are like this century's equivalent of the pox infected blankets we gave to the native Americans who where just being nice in accepting them as presents. They didn't need any ugly knitted blankets that smelled like wrinkled old white woman, they had animal skins. They were just being polite in the same way that I should be when someone offers me their baby to hold.

But I won't do it! No! History unheeded is history repeated and I am not taking that little germ machine from you! You keep it! I don't care how much powder and how many baby wipes you use, that thing is a stinky cesspool of disease and death! You don't see it because you love your baby, but I can see the malevolence in his eyes when he is trying to shove a half-gummed slobber covered piece of floor cheese in my mouth.

"Oh, isn't that nice, he wants to share with you!" Yeah, but what does he want to share, Hoof and Mouth disease? Keep it! Uncle Bill can afford his own cheese! I don't want it. I can see the look in your eye you little devil child. I know what you are trying to do and I am out of here! I'm not entirely sure your diaper has blowout protection.