Kimberly-Clark launched a mobile campaign for its Huggies Pull-Ups training pants brand that is designed to help mothers potty train their kids.

Working with Ipsh, a mobile marketing agency that?s part of Omnicom?s The Marketing Arm, Pull-Ups created a program where moms are able to text in from a call-to-action on-pack to order the potty training kits. Using their mobile phones, moms can arrange for Cinderella or a Cars character to call their phone at a designated day and time.

?The Pull-Ups brand is about big kid success and we are helping the moms and children succeed in the potty-training process,? said Geoff Golub, shopping marketing manager for the Pull-Ups brand at Kimberly-Clark, Dallas. ?Mobile allows us to communicate with mom right at the shelf.

?We are trying to make the shopping experience easier for moms on the go,? he said.

For the IVR portion of the campaign, when the call comes in, the parent receives a voice prompt asking them to hand the phone to their child.

Once the child is on the phone, a Cinderella or a Cars character congratulates them on their potty training.

The idea behind the IVR portion stems from the fact that potty-training is a difficult time for moms and their little ones and Pull-Ups wants to help with this experience by providing a fun way to encourage children during the process.

The on-pack calls to action ask moms to either text POTTY or BIGKID to short code 65579, depending on the sex of the child.  

?The fact is that moms are big users of SMS, in fact they are 24 percent more likely to use SMS than the average consumer,? said Bryon Morrison, president of Ipsh, New York.

?SMS is something they already use,? he said. ?We also noticed that moms are using the mobile phone as an entertainment tool to raise their kids. We?ve been watching them in-store and have seen them hand their phones to their kids.

?Now we are trying to figure out how to facilitate and grow our relationships with moms. This is not meant as a one-time program.?

There is also a mobile Web site for the campaign at http://pottyprint.mobi. 

Also an insert arrives in the mail along with the Potty Print Kit and drives moms online to schedule a call.

Pull-Ups chose mobile for this particular promotion because it provides instant access to consumers and develops a one-to-one communication for the brand.

This is Pull-Ups? first mobile marketing effort.

?We are still learning our way through this,? Mr. Golub said. ?We also see [the campaign] as way to learn how moms interact with the brand.?

This is not the first time that Kimberly-Clark has turned to mobile to promote one of its brands.

Kimberly-Clark's Kleenex tissue brand turned to mobile marketing to promote the launch of its Kleenex Facial Tissue with Lotion.

The launch of the It Feels Good To Feel campaign was supported by an iPhone application created by Ideas for iPhone and the brand's agency, GMR. The application was meant to help Kleenex communicate to its consumers that it feels good to feel (see story).

?One of the great thing about working with Pull-Ups is they are really focused on letting us learn from this program,? Mr. Morrison said.

As for mobile?s role in Kimberly-Clark?s overall marketing strategy, Mr. Golub said that the brand is till testing to see the efficacy of mobile.

?The nice thing about mobile is when it fits the brand's strategy it opens the doors for creative ways to connect with the shopper and this is a good example of that,? Mr. Golub said.