Did Huggies do the right kind of research?

Recently, Huggies had a PR disaster when they launched a new campaign aimed at Dads. The point was to poke fun at Dads and put the message out that Huggies are so great the diaper can even withstand Dad's ineptitude.Huggies stepped in it big time.

If they had done more research, could they have known that men and women, particularly the Daddy-bloggers would freak out and mount more than three different petitions against them?

According the U.S Census Bureau, 32% of Dads are the primary caregivers in the U.S.Even those Fathers that aren't primary caregivers are quite capable of changing a diaper.

It would be interesting to know what kind of focus groups they do before they launched the campaign? Did they test it with a small segment first? Did anyone working on the campaign at any time, think. “You know, it is 2012 and this could be seen as offensive to men.”

It may have been a little out of touch of Huggies when they say their campaign was to celebrate Fatherhood. Did they survey Fathers? Did the look at parenting statistics? It is harder to measure and predict when a comic look at these things backfires.

It is a little ironic when you think of all the insanely offensive advertising, sexualizing young girls , or portraying women as idiots that the Dad's are so horrified.But yes,it is a little old to keep seeing the same stereotyping in commercials, dumb or nasty woman, dumb or fumbling man.

Anytime you launch a campaign you must decide who you are targeting. You have to research how that audience will respond to certain messages. There has to be times when you make an educated guess, but Huggies must have been aware they would receive some criticism but they clearly weren't prepared for the outcry.

If you want to launch a campaign celebrating Fatherhood, then they should have reached out to the Daddy bloggers before and gotten some feedback.

What was the long term strategic plan for Huggies? Huggies will make you a better Dad? Huggies will make being a Dad easier?

Honda came out with a brilliant Dad commercial poking fun at Dads in minivans , but the comedy was more explicit and the message really was celebrating Dads.It was not playfully suggesting they would let their babies sit in filth if left to their own devices.

On the other hand, Huggies has a lot of money to do research. They may have examined all these segments very carefully and just fumbled. Based on this fail and the Motrin moms disaster, it might be wise for companies to really question when working the comic angle if you are making fun of a segment or a having fun with a segment. It is a very fine line.