Adult Diapers “No Joke” Pitch

You know it: Market caps are messy!

But why did Kate Ennis attempt to prove it without any real facts when writing to BusinessWeek to try and get them to write about the growth business of incontinence? I get we all have a job to do, and pitching a product line like this is definitely sticky....but come on! In a recession when the reached Personal Finance columnist has a lot of serious, timely and real work to do, the below just reads like total poop.

(And now I’ll stop with the diaper jokes.)



Hi. Adult diapers are no joke – as the population ages and prostate cancer treatments evolve, there is a growing market for these items. Bladder control issues affect some 25 to 27 million men and women. My client, SCA Personal Care North America (OTC: SVCBY), has come out with a new anatomically-correct protective underwear for men and women under its TENA brand supported by a consumer education campaign. At the same time, our main competitor in the US, Kimberly-Clark, has launched a similar product and big ad campaign. SCA has a market cap of $843 and our competitor has a market cap of $19 billion. We’d love to talk to you about trends in the adult incontinence market.

Like you, I want to know what anatomically-correct diapers are, but that’s not the point. While the product is for adults, the above is written for and by two-year-olds: Kimberly-Clark, the competitor, has a “big ad campaign” (drat!) so this means our reporter, should stop what she’s doing to see how big the story is. Also, her “INVESTMENT SECTOR: Adult diapers” email subject line was bait and switch! While anyone would open this from curiosity, the innards did not match the topic.

Kate’s pitch has three problems: 1. It's correspondence that’s not well thought out or completed; 2. Nothing is really offered here; and 3. Really? We are supposed to believe there’s a growing market for diapers because of a sudden increase in a lack of bladder control? I think the better story is how the ages-old scam of frequent "goers" are a much-misunderstood population that could use some behavioral therapy.

That's a growing business I'd invest in.

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