Hey Marketing Bestie, Us marketers sure can learn a lot from our Marketing fore-fathers and fore-mothers. Consider this a parade for the greatest marketing campaigns in memory.
Welcome to Marketing Classics 411, a new kind of ancient history. In place of hieroglyphs, expect to decipher the campaigns of yesteryear. Professor Millennial teaches every Tuesday (remotely), via electronic mail.
Class is now in session. |
Was this email forwarded to you? |
|
|
How Frida Built A Brand Out Of The Gross Parts Of Parenting |
The global baby products market was valued at $358B in 2024. Even if you’re not a parent, you’ve heard of Gerber, Pampers, and Fisher-Price.
But unless you ARE a parent, you probably haven’t heard about Frida.
Frida’s different. Their entire focus is on the messy, gross, stressful parts of parenting no other brand talks about. Gross is their MOAT. Their products are practical, not aspirational. (Its #1 SKU is called the SnotSucker, LOL.) The packaging is matter-of-fact and a little cheeky.
The Marketing campaigns are raw, unapologetic, and generate a diaper-bag-full of earned media.
But even the most strategic and innovative brands experience growing pains... This is the story of... Frida. |
It all started in 2014. 👶 Chelsea Hirschhorn was an exhausted new mom with a sick baby. She tried to unclog her son’s nose with one of those old-school bulb syringes. You know the ones: |
Like a plunger for baby boogers. (via Lumior) |
It didn’t work.
Then, she remembered a weird gift from her Swedish neighbor.
A nasal aspirator made of 2 parts: A tube that goes outside a baby’s nostril, connected to a straw that goes inside…a parent’s mouth. |
Chelsea’s neighbor imported and sold these devices to pediatrician’s offices and specialty stores, running the business out of her garage. Chelsea was skeptical, but desperate. She was ready to try anything. So she put this weird thingamajig in, and…. Sucked the snot out of her son’s nose!
It was safe, effective, and disgusting… …Disgustingly SATISFYING. Chelsea was so impressed that she joined her neighbor’s business, becoming the “refounder” and CEO of Frida.
The company was profitable, but had a little problem… It had no branding, no positioning, and only sold 1 product. |
Chelsea quickly recognized Frida’s white space: No other babycare brand owned fuss, the problems that keep babies AND parents up at night crying. These are the problems parents don’t realize are problems, until they happen!
Chelsea described Frida as “the best friend no one has.” She came up with a tagline: The fuss stops here. |
Now, Frida needed more problems to solve. Chelsea’s own parenting struggles became the R&D lab.
Helpful in making this a reality: Frida owns the manufacturing of many of their products from start to finish.
Others come from around the world, but have no previous distribution or branding. Frida either buys or licenses the patents.
Frida’s earliest products fell under the Baby Health & Grooming category. Obviously, safety’s critical in this category. But Frida’s products aren’t FDA-regulated. So Frida’s packaging walks a fine line.
It has to explain how and why to use the product in a brand voice that’s trustworthy and playful, without being clinical or crude.
Each product solves 1 specific painpoint, like the terror of trying to cut teeny tiny fingernails (my nightmare right now) or the battle to brush toddlers’ teeth.
Windi the Gaspasser, helps constipated babies…break wind. |
I’ll let you figure out how this one works… (via Frida) |
MediFrida is a pacifier-style medicine dispenser. (Genius.) DermaFrida is a more soothing and hygienic alternative to washcloths.
Meanwhile, their flagship fussbuster NoseFrida, still sucks in the cash. ~3 MILLION are sold annually! |
Once Frida dominated the Baby Health & Grooming category, it set out to serve another audience: new moms. Historically, maternal health brands have focused on pregnant women OR new moms.
Frida wanted to help both.
So, it launched Frida Mom in 2019 with products that ease the pains of pregnancy AND postpartum recovery.
The Pregnancy Relief category page includes a pregnancy pillow, anti-nausea bands, a no-friction stick that prevents skin chafing, and more. |
Need this, but for everyday dad life. (via Frida) |
After giving birth, most women go home with some advice, special underwear, and a baby.
Frida Mom recognizes that moms deserve TLC, too.
|
Frida’s brand positioning here is ALSO to address the spectrum of new mom experiences. Because no 1 birth is the same.
There are solutions for moms recovering from C-sections, or who are nursing AND pumping. Their goal: make Frida a 1-stop mom shop. It was successful enough they decided to start Frida Fertility in 2023, with supplements for aspiring parents, ovulation testing kips, even no-mess pee cups for pregnancy testing (IYKYK). What will they think of next? |
|
|
Frida mined the parenting journey for problems it could solve that no one else were talking about–because they were too gross or too hard.
They found their niche with babies, and grew SKUs along their customer’s life journeys, from new and expecting moms to couples trying to get pregnant. Get ready for a mother of a brainstorm. Here’s your homework:
1️⃣. Jot down 5-7 problems you know your target audience faces in the moments you’re trying to reach them. Bonus points if these are the unpleasant issues nobody really talks about, or talk about using polite euphemisms, but fall under the IYKYK category. Depending on your insights, these may be general or specific. Both are good. You’re going for breadth.
2️⃣. Review your list and pick 1-2 problems your brand’s most equipped to solve.
Consider your brand’s strengths, resources, and priorities. You’re trying to level up, not come out of left field.
3️⃣. Get specific and creative about how your brand can solve these problems…and how REAL you can get when you talk about them.
Your solution might be a strategic tweak to a current process or an entirely new product or offering. |
|
|
Frida products are sold DTC, AND in over 40,000 stores across the U.S. Plus, more than 50 countries. The brand is trusted by medical experts and parents alike. Its Marketing is exactly what you’d expect: real, unfiltered, and authentic. Without taking itself too seriously. The strategy is the same across all product lines: 😩 90% spotlighting a parenting challenge.
🙌 10% spotlighting a product that solves it. |
Frida has to prioritize owned channels and alternate distribution paths, because its brand voice and products aren’t always compatible with mass distribution.
Sometimes the powers-that-be on different platforms and networks find it shocking and inappropriate.
In 2020, a Frida commercial about the postpartum experience was rejected from the Oscars telecast for being too graphic. Lemme guess. Now you want to watch it? So did millions of others. No matter how “NSFW” it was.
Frida shared it on YouTube, staking their claim on being willing to say what other brands wouldn’t…but what every new mom would recognize.
The story was picked up worldwide. The unaired commercial went viral. A year later, Frida successfully aired a viral commercial about breastfeeding during the Golden Globes. Featuring actual moms airing actual fears and worries about the process. Frida ads stop people in their tracks, whether they’re parents or not.
Honest birth announcements.
|
This 1 ran in the UK. NSFUS. (via 72 Point)
|
Snotty billboards during cold and flu season. |
This one was near the New England Aquarium! (via Frida) |
A pop-up ice cream parlor and limited run of “breast milk” ice cream. |
It sold out faster than you can say “lactation.” (via Cafe Mom) |
NO, not actual breastmilk. But I bet that got your attention, huh? Parenting challenges never felt so creative. |
Frida’s an outlier in the parenting space, but it’s not alone in offering fresh, super-honest solutions to age-old problems. Around the same time Frida took baby boogers mainstream, other brands found success in “saying the thing” out loud…especially if it was gross, taboo, or “not safe for TV.” Thinx introduced period underwear.
Squatty Potty became the #1 way to go #2. (Remember THEIR viral commercial?)
Who Gives A Crap unrolled eco-friendly toilet paper.
|
Porta Squatty? This brand’s thought of everything. (via Amazon) |
These brands invited consumers to think about an ordinary bodily function and its associated products and problems in a new way.
With a sense of humor, not embarrassment. With new solutions, not shame. Years later, Hims & Hers sold hair loss and sexual health drugs. TUSHY made bidets cool in America.
Even MiraLAX got in on the fun.
It’s probably a generational thing.
Millennial and Gen Z adults want to skip the euphemisms and get right to the point. Authentic, not pastel-colored perfection.
They want help without judgment and don’t want to feel alone in their struggles. It makes you wonder…
What other categories are just waiting to be disrupted or reimagined?
Could embracing a new problem be the solution for your brand?
|
|
|
MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS STORY): |
1️⃣. Own the problem.
Frida became a category leader by taking on the messy parts of parenting other babycare brands didn’t acknowledge, didn’t solve, or BOTH. It marketed problems 1st and products 2nd. Then it worked backwards and thought of problems new moms experience after delivery, during pregnancy, and while trying to get pregnant. 2️⃣. Use constraints as fuel.
Frida’s commercial for the 2020 Oscars was a big investment. Then it got rejected for being too graphic.
So Frida shared it on owned channels, generating earned media and public support. The unaired commercial went viral.
Censorship and platform limits can become the story and the distribution strategy, if you plan for it. 3️⃣. Build a brand posture that scales across SKUs. Frida started with a single cult product.
It became a brand once it had a tagline: The fuss stops here. Positioning had to balance trustworthiness with approachability. Frida wanted the unfiltered struggles of parenting to be seen and solved.
This gave the brand a wide range of topics to explore across creative AND product development. |
|
|
Ahh, the bell has rung. Please be sure to do the reading (follow The Marketing Millennials on LinkedIn and me, Professor Millennial, on X). Off you go, passing period is only 11 minutes and there’s already a line at the vending machine that sells travel SnotSuckers.
Until next time,
Professor Millennial |
|
|
{if !profile.vars.marketingland_user_fitness && profile.vars.marketingland_user_fitness != false}Join 7,390 other marketing leaders in Marketingland |
|
|
{/if}{if profile.vars.marketingland_user_fitness == true}{/if}Get your brand in front of 121,900+ marketing leaders. |
Workweek Media Inc.
1023 Springdale Road, STE 9E
Austin, TX 78721
Want to ruin my day? Unsubscribe. |
|
|
|
