Depend, the
adult diaper folks, brings us a new TV Ad campaign called “Drop Your Pants for Underwareness.”
Here are the key sound bites.
Sound Bite #1
[Depend
is launching]
“A
cause to support the over 65 million people who may need Depend underwear.”
In one of the
Ads, Depend Brand Director, Liz Metz, tells us she’s dropping her pants in the
name of her father, who has prostate related incontinence. She invites us to “join the cause” and drop
my pants for someone who is important to me.
The Facts
Incontinence in its different forms is
widespread among US adults. Much more common in women the incidence increase with
age. Roughly 18 million people have daily urinary incontinence. Added to the roughly 34 million people who
need to urinate with increasing frequency or urgency, it is a big problem that
can cause people to curtail activities, socially isolate and suffer depression.
Sound bite #2
“It’s time to bring it out
in the open. It’s time to drop your pants for underawareness. “
The Facts
Incontinence is not something we readily discuss
with our doctors. Of all the men and women who experience incontinence unfortunately
at least half don’t tell a doctor about it.
In fact, 1 in 4 women over 40 suffer from some type of urinaryincontinence, but most are too embarrassed to talk about it.
Sound bite #3
“…because
wearing a different kind of underwear is no big deal.”
But it’s not the garment we really should be talking about
here, is it?
Important facts
dropped along with the pants:
What the Depend campaign deftly fails to mention, or even
allude to in a tiny print messages, is that Incontinence is a symptom
of something. And that critical message
is artfully masked by the focus on outing incontinence, dropping your pants for
someone (echoes of ALS bucket challenge here), and asserting yourself by
wearing novel briefs.
It really wouldn’t have taken much video scripting time to include
an accurate central message about incontinence.
This is - a thorough physical exam is the only way to identify the kind
of incontinence a person has and to identify the possible remedies.
One of the reasons that a medical exam is so important is
that urinary incontinence
can be caused by many different medical problems:
Overactive bladder muscles
Damage to nerves that
control the bladder from diseases such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s
disease
Poor
overall health
Diabetes,
stroke, high blood pressure, arthritis
Back
problems
Obesity
Blockage from an enlarged
prostate in men
And common medications - diurectics, estrogen,
benzodiazepines, tranquilizers, antidepressants, hypnotics, and laxatives.
Treatments
And there are a
fairly long list of possible treatments - controlling fluid intake, bladder
training, pelvic floor exercises, biofeedback and medication, lifestyle
changes, losing weight, reduced alcohol or caffeine consumption, etc. In severe
and very bothersome cases there is surgery.
the adult diaper market (a few years ago I’d trip over those
words) has caught up to the baby diaper market in the US. Adults in the US spend close to $20 billion coping with urinary incontinence per year, and an additional $12.6 billion on urinary urgency and frequency. Women are the largest consumers (86 percentof total sales in the incontinence market.) 1 in 3 women over the age of 18
suffer from some sort of sensitive bladder or incontinence, but only 1 in 9
actually use a specialty adult incontinence product today.
With close to 80 million baby boomers currently 65+ it’s the
perfect market for products we would never have thought we needed 30 years ago.
316 million adults over 70 years old in the world today (1 in every 3 requires
protection) – China being the biggest potential market.
So, I’m ready to
drop my pants with the best of them for a cause that advances the public’s
understanding of health.
I propose we all drop Depend an email urging them to tweak their message ever so slightly - to do their part to advance the public's understanding of the serious, life disrupting problem.
“Drop your pants to show support for all those who suffer for incontinence. It’s time we started talking to our doctors about incontinence ..Oh, and BTW, Depends may be able to help.”