The reason why Pampers ditched Sesame Street Characters

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babyblueblanket said:
If they were plain white now millennial parents would complain that it lacks diversity and the ACLU would file a federal suit claiming racial intolerance. We shouldn't be forcing that kind of stuff on infants. We need to sit down and have a conversation with our 6 month old and let them decide. LOL. (Note heavy sarcasm)

They would hold marches in the street and file petitions on change.org and create a witty yet irrelevant hash tag campaign and probably loot a walgreens.

I agree something along these lines would happen.
 
Andybun said:
I remember Pampers from my days in them and they were plain white. So what's the fuss about?

Same here. Back then the manufacturers were only worried about making a diaper that worked. Since they've gotten that figured out now, they've had to add designs to them in order to make them stand out from the other brands. And of course, the parents have grown to expect certain designs on those baby diapers. Of which, that expectation changes over time. Hence all the fuss.
 
dogboy said:
I'm so old that when my kids were still in diapers, Pampers had pictures of serial killers on their diapers. My son was especially fond of Ted Bundy diapers.

Pfffff. :lol: :laugh:

What about the John Wayne Gacy one with the fade-when-wet clown nose?

Also, them changing to more "generic" designs couldn't possibly be because some of their 'green' and 'eco' competitors use the same sorts of designs, could it? (IE: The Honest Company, Earth's Best and Seventh Generation)

That's your reason right there. Competition AND savings on licensing fees.

For an example of this "People low on the work-ladder don't know what they're talking about", I'll give you a RL story.

They cancelled an overtime day fully at my job, giving us an extra day off. I was told by our production manager who was told directly from the customer we serve. So I -knew- that I had correct information. But at work I heard:

"They don't really need to make up that much production."
"The hurricane is going to make the plant flood."
"Everyone said they weren't going to come in."

The middle one is -kind of- right, but not the factory we send stuff to, which is what the person who said it meant. They have another supplier that got hammered by Hurricane Florence and are now experiencing supply-chain issues as the flooding at the supplier is cleaned up and power is restored.

So if you'd just walked in and asked Joe Blow on the floor at work why we didn't work that day, you would have absolutely no real clue other than what he -guessed- happened.

And besides, you have a crap-ton of girls on Sesame Street now. Rosita, Julia, Abby, Zoe, Prairie Dawn, etc. So the 'guess' doesn't hold water, dude.
 
Well, I read the other article from a different source and now Pampers reasoning seems to be that it's to have "more variety" as they state there will still be Sesame Street characters on some of their Diapers, just not Baby Dry.
 
I do believe it's about gender related stuff, because that's all what millennials seem so freakishly focused on. :(
 
12srepaid said:
I do believe it's about gender related stuff, because that's all what millennials seem so freakishly focused on. :(

I still think it's about money and the gender equality stuff is PR spin.
 
ALSO! Just noticed, but Earth's Best are just plain white baby diapers. So yeah. (I would hazard the guess that they appeal towards the "I don't want anything artificial touching my baby" types. Or the "We don't support exposing our children to cartoon characters because it promotes too much screen-time" crowd. That's a legit group of parents. They don't want their kids to have any sort of thing related to a cartoon/tv series because they don't want them to be 'obsessed' with it. I don't know how well that works out for them. O_O)

Not sure why everyone is focusing on a 'millennial' witch-hunt about them complaining about the colors/prints on their babies diapers. :\

As for me, I usually just refer to those kinds of people as 'bitchy assholes' because they come from ALL generations, not just one. And some of the worst offenders are Boomers and Gen Xers. (For the record, I come between Gen X and Millennials. I don't know what to call myself. LOL "Diaper wearing weirdo" comes to mind. But like...weird because of other things, not the diaper.)

And it's always about the money. ;)

I'm not affiliated with P&G (thank goodness!) but we had to take a ton of classes about this stuff in college. Basically "This is what your employer as an artist is looking for when they want to redesign a product. And you must pay close attention to what they say/do so you can please them." And it's usually stuff like "Our sales are starting to slump in Product X. Product Y is fine, we'll keep that design because it's working for it, but we MUST change Product X. Make new artwork for it!"

There are some brands that don't change at all. Shell oil company for instance...it hasn't changed in over a decade. It's instantly recognizable. Other companies/organizations change their logo/brand artwork constantly. I'm freakin' looking at you, Sundance Film Festival.

Diaper artwork isn't the same caliber, of course. Most people can't tell the difference just because of a print and most parents don't -care- what's on them as long as they do the job. But if sales are starting to slide, a refresh of artwork doesn't usually hurt. Especially if it puts them closer to looking like a competitor who uses similar artwork/themes.
 
I miss A Nightmare on a Elm Street printed diapers. They'd turn red with drops of blood and when it was time to change, Freddy's claws came out of nowhere and shredded it off your baby's butt.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
I think the term for Overly Protective Parents is called "Helicopter Parents" basically they aim to protect their kids from anything and everything by "hovering" over their children and not letting them grow up in the same ways as normal parents would.

I think those same parents are probably also the type that either dont allow kids to play video games, or they make sure it's a "kid/family friendly" game even if their "kid" is almost an adult.

I think parents should let kids find some things out for themselves and let them learn in normal ways, but hey I'm not gonna try to force those parents to act like normal parents and let their kids be normal kids.

I just think that at some point the parents wont be able to protect and shelter their children and at that point it is basically setting their children up to fail.

Back to Diapers though, I think this huge focus on "Gender equity" or whatever you wanna call it is kinda stupid because it's not "Sexist" just because the diapers have mostly Male characters; this might not be a huge part of why the designs have changed.

but still I think people read into things too much and relate one thing to another that actually have nothing to do with each other, and as far as Bert and Ernie being gay, I think it was always pretty obvious to adults what was going on, but as a kids show they don't focus on Sexuality and the creators and directors aren't gonna put a big focus on that sort of thing; I think the comments in the article about Bert and Ernie being different but still "friends" with each other is the message they want to teach kids, that you don't have to all be the same to like each other.

And that is the most important thing; that children are learning a positive message and being shaped into good people.
 
BabyTyrant said:
Well, I read the other article from a different source and now Pampers reasoning seems to be that it's to have "more variety" as they state there will still be Sesame Street characters on some of their Diapers, just not Baby Dry.

Eh? The link I posted above says that the Baby Dry line will be keeping Sesame Street characters... :-/

12srepaid said:
I do believe it's about gender related stuff, because that's all what millennials seem so freakishly focused on. :(

Nah -- chances are it'll be about money. The right-wing media are obsessed with political-correctness and will pretend it's the reason for any change.

Pampers are cagey about saying that it's due to cost because, if they say they're saving money, consumers will want to know how much and how much cheaper Pampers will be in future.

Maybe this article explains better: Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy

A few snippets:

[Political-correctness] was a useful invention for the Republican right because it helped the movement to drive a wedge between working-class people and the Democrats who claimed to speak for them. “Political correctness” became a term used to drum into the public imagination the idea that there was a deep divide between the “ordinary people” and the “liberal elite”, who sought to control the speech and thoughts of regular folk.Opposition to political correctness also became a way to rebrand racism in ways that were politically acceptable in the post-civil-rights era.

...

[Anit-politically-correct news editorials] committed many of the same fallacies that their predecessors from the 1990s had. They cherry-picked anecdotes and caricatured the subjects of their criticism. They complained that other people were creating and enforcing speech codes, while at the same time attempting to enforce their own speech codes. Their writers designated themselves the arbiters of what conversations or political demands deserved to be taken seriously, and which did not. They contradicted themselves in the same way: their authors continually complained, in highly visible publications, that they were being silenced. The climate of digital journalism and social media sharing enabled the anti-political-correctness (and anti-anti-political correctness) stories to spread even further and faster than they had in the 1990s. Anti-PC and anti-anti-PC stories come cheap: because they concern identity, they are something that any writer can have a take on, based on his or her experiences, whether or not he or she has the time or resources to report. They are also perfect clickbait. They inspire outrage, or outrage at the outrage of others.

...

The opponents of political correctness always said they were crusaders against authoritarianism. In fact, anti-PC has paved the way for the populist authoritarianism now spreading everywhere.
 
Well wasnt the "baby dry" size 8 with generic characters? Or maybe that was due to size and not the diaper line?
 
BabyTyrant said:
P and G stopped using the Design that is on the ABUniverse SDK a long time ago, so ABU had the right to take that design and put it on an Adult Diaper and sell that Adult Diaper as a "replica" or what have you of the original Pampers design; it is only when designs are currently used that the rights to them have to be Sold/Bought.

Not exactly. Trademarks don't have an expiration date, exactly (though you can argue abandonment after a while), and copyright (the designs themselves) survive for *decades* regardless of whether or not they're being actively used to market / mark products. Likely it's not just not worth P&G's time / effort, or the weird publicity that might follow, to go after ABU.
 
I'm going to tell you something about Bert and Ernie. They're roughly based on a movie.

If you want to tell yourself they're gay, fine, but that wasn't the intent of the creators. They're two roommates who are total opposites of each other. They're actually a kid-friendly version of the Odd Couple. :lol: (So no notes on the pillow saying "Out of cornflakes, F. U.")

If you've never heard of that, the gist of it is:

Two guys are roommates, sharing an apartment. One is a clean freak and the other one is a slob. One is quiet and the other is loud. They're friends, but they drive each other up the wall because they're too different to get along when they're together all the time.

The movie came out in 1968. Sesame Street screen tested with Bert and Ernie in 1969. I don't think it's a coincidence. They don't come out and say this anywhere, but the similarities are too numerous for it to be a 'mistake'. The movie was pretty popular at the time and is still pretty funny even now.

(As to how the two guys in the movie ended up together, the one guys wife left him and he's feeling suicidal. So his friend tells him to come stay with him until he feels better.)
 
So this is “The odd couple” you're referencing..If so, I think first it was a play by Neil Simon, then became a sitcom on tv.
Hmm. Ernie is thin and neat :)
 
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CuddleWoozle said:
I'm going to tell you something about Bert and Ernie. They're roughly based on a movie.

If you want to tell yourself they're gay, fine, but that wasn't the intent of the creators. They're two roommates who are total opposites of each other. They're actually a kid-friendly version of the Odd Couple. :lol: (So no notes on the pillow saying "Out of cornflakes, F. U.")

If you've never heard of that, the gist of it is:

Two guys are roommates, sharing an apartment. One is a clean freak and the other one is a slob. One is quiet and the other is loud. They're friends, but they drive each other up the wall because they're too different to get along when they're together all the time.

The movie came out in 1968. Sesame Street screen tested with Bert and Ernie in 1969. I don't think it's a coincidence. They don't come out and say this anywhere, but the similarities are too numerous for it to be a 'mistake'. The movie was pretty popular at the time and is still pretty funny even now.

(As to how the two guys in the movie ended up together, the one guys wife left him and he's feeling suicidal. So his friend tells him to come stay with him until he feels better.)

Well even before I read this, I never thought of Ernie and Bert as being gay, but they do remind me of the Odd Couple. (Nice, I've got that tune in my head right now.)
 
drawer said:
So this is “The odd couple” you're referencing..If so, I think first it was a play by Neil Simon, then became a sitcom on tv.
Hmm. Ernie is thin and neat :)

First a Play

Then a movie

Then the TV Show
 
Mine still have sesame street?
 
Easyupssuck41 said:
Mine still have sesame street?

There is likely still a lot of the old stock left, plus it takes time to design new artwork/characters, and anyways it seems Baby Dry will keep the Sesame Street characters.
 
It's funny because males are slower to develop bladder control, hence they should have a higher representation on bladder control-related products. Take that, SJWs!
 
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