"What we'll be able to show come late September is the top five
to 10 cities predicted to be the hardest hit," she said. Consumers
will also be able to enter their Zip Codes at the site to get
regional cold and flu forecasts that the company hopes will go,
well, viral, as people share them with friends.
The effort also includes a "Kleenex Checkpoints" traveling
promotion that starts Sept. 25 in Chicago -- a city that last year
was one of the hardest hit by the most severe U.S. cold-and-flu
seasons in a decade. After that, Kleenex will largely go where the
algorithm moves it, rolling promotion and publicity efforts into
towns at highest risk for cold and flu outbreaks.
The idea is to get consumers to stock up on Kleenex before they
get sick, rather than buy supplies when they already feel bad.
That's reinforced by a TV campaign breaking Sept. 16 from JWT, New York, showing the shame of people
who've been forced into unfortunate alternatives when they didn't
have Kleenex, such as sneezing into their hands and then wiping
them on the family dog.
Those cases are wrapped around a standard blue-fluid demo
showing an improved Kleenex tissue absorbing better than "the
leading competitor," which would be Procter & Gamble Co.'s
Puffs. Kleenex leads the $1.6 billion facial-tissue category with a
46.8% share, up 0.5 points on sales up 2% for the 52 weeks ended
Aug. 31, according to Nielsen data from Deutsche
Bank.
While the TV buy won't be guided by the predictive model,
Kleenex will place geo-targeted digital ads based on Achoo
predictions, Ms. Elledge said.
JWT's WPP siblings Mindshare, Geometry Global and Studiocom are handling media, shopper
marketing and digital, respectively. Omnicom's Ketchum is fielding public relations
and handling the traveling promotion.