SEVEN DECADES OF

DISPOSABLE DIAPERS

A Record of Continuous Innovation

and Expanding Benefit
Author : Davis Dyer
The Winthrop Group, Inc. on behalf of EDANA
August 2005

Table of Contents
Introduction

1.

Product Invention (before the 1930s)

Key Lessons of the First Period (before the 1930s)

Early Commercialization (1930s-1950s)

Key Lessons of the Second Period (1930s-1950s)

Rapid Adoption (1960s-1980s)

2.

3.

4.

Key Lessons of the Third Period (1960s-1980s)

12

Continuous Improvement (since 1990)

13

Key Lessons of the Fourth Period (since 1990)

14

Endnotes

15

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Introduction
One of the most significant consumer products of the twentieth century, the disposable diaper
(or nappy in some usages) continues to evolve rapidly in the early twenty-first century,
becoming smaller, cheaper, easier to use, friendlier to the environment, and more ubiquitous
every year. Today, more than nine of every ten diaper changes in the developed world and a
growing percentage elsewhere are disposables. The disposable diaper provides a modern
solution to an age-old needto keep infants clean, dry, and safe from infectionswhile
liberating parents from an age-old problemto clean up after infants and small children during
the earliest years before potty training.
The story of the disposable diaper begins more than a century ago, but it became commercially
viable in Europe and North America seven decades ago, in the late 1940s. Its evolution was
hardly smooth, however, and the huge success it has become was hardly foreseen at the outset.
In taking a long view of the product, it may be helpful to think about its development in four
distinct periods:
1.

Product Invention (before the 1930s), when numerous independent inventors

sought better solutions to traditional diapering;

2.

Early Commercialization (1930s-1950s), when private corporations

introduced disposable diapers and slowly cultivated the market;

3.

Rapid Adoption (1960s-1980s), when demand exploded as disposable diapers

became affordable and widely available; and

4.

Continuous Improvement (1990s-present), when the leading manufacturers

are competing on a global basis to offer consumers a product undergoing
constant innovation and improvement.

Let us consider each of these stages, in turn.

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1. Product Invention (before the 1930s)

The problem of diaperingof clothing infants not yet potty trainedis as old as human history.
For millennia, mothers living in warm climates typically left their children naked and cleaned up
the waste only when it interfered with eating, sleeping, or working. When infants needed to be
moved, they were wrapped tightly in home-spun cloths or in shells fabricated from plants or
animal hides. (A familiar example is the Native American papoose, a bundled infant often
depicted as carried on its mothers back.) In colder regions, infants were often bound up, neck
to toe, in swaddling clothes or blankets that served multiple purposes: keeping the infant
warm and secure, freeing mothers to undertake chores, and acting as primitive diapers. We do
not know how often such garments were changed, though there is not much evidence of
progress through the centuries. One source claims, for example, in the sixteenth century infant
garments were changed every three or four days, while wet garments may not have been
washed but simply dried and re-used.1
In the mid-nineteenth century, cheap manufactured cotton fabrics, which were newly available
and affordable with industrialization, filled demand for cloth diapers around the world. Diapers
were typically rectangular or square in shape and were folded and fastened on infants as
garments or undergarments. An important advance occurred in the late 1840s with the
invention of the safety pin. The basic cotton diaper meanwhile evolved little through the
decades, as it was inexpensive, versatile (bigger children could use bigger cloths), moderately
absorptive, washable, and reusable (often from child to child in a family or community). In
some cultures, mothers might insert a natural absorbent material such as moss or peat into the
diaper to help collect at least some waste, or they might put two or more diapers on the child
to limit leakage. Diapering habits generally correlated with socio-economic status: wealthier
families could afford more frequent purchases and changes (and nannies!), while poorer
families made do with fewer diapers and fewer changes during a given period.
Even as cotton diapers gained acceptance numerous inventors and entrepreneurs sought to
improve upon its limitationsmessy cleanup and tendencies to leak and correlate with skin rash.
Between the 1880s and 1930s the United States government patent office recorded dozens of
relevant inventions, including shaped and fitted diaper designs, alternative fastening systems,
absorbent inserts, medicated surfaces, and moisture-proof covers. In 1858, for example, J. H.
Hall designed a moisture-proof attachment to a cloth diaper to capture and isolate waste.
During the next few decades, more ideas and innovations surfaced: a diaper with a disposable
paper lining; rubberized panties with medicated surfaces; disposable absorbent cellulose pad
inserts.2
None of these inventions resulted in immediate commercial success. By the early 1930s,
however, key ideas were coming together and the prospect of developing a better diaper began
to appeal not just to individual inventors and entrepreneurs but also to large commercial
organizations, heralding a new period of focused, patient, and persistent product development.

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Key Lessons of the First Period (before the 1930s)

In the long scheme of human history, the cotton cloth diaper is a relatively recent arrival.
Its period of ascendancy extended from the mid-19th century to the late-20th century.

From the beginning, users recognized the limitations of cloth diapers, especially leakage,
discomfort, and cleanup.
As early as the 1850s, inventors and entrepreneurs were looking to overcome these
limitations and offer consumers diapers that were moisture-proof, more absorbent,
disposable, and hygienic.

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2. Early Commercialization (1930s-1950s)

In the 1930s, industrial researchers in Europe and North America followed separate paths
toward the disposable diaper, one originating in papermaking and the other in specialized
fabrics for medical uses.
In Europe, the pioneer was the Swedish paper company Paulistrm Bruk, which capitalized on
recent advances in papermaking in Germany. The Germansperhaps in anticipation of wartime
supply disruptionswere seeking alternatives to imported cotton for medical purposes and had
developed a technique to fabricate a soft cellulose tissue (Cell-Stoff) from wood pulp. In
Sweden, which also imported cotton but possessed a booming forest products industry,
engineers took note. In 1936, a Paulistrm manager visited Germany to learn the technique,
which he brought back to Sweden. Among the first customers for Paulistrms new material
were several hospitals, which used it for disposable absorbent inserts to diapers in maternity
wards. The product evidently worked well: after leaving hospital, some mothers began asking
Paulistrm where they could buy the inserts, and a new business was born. According to one
account, Paulistrm decided to introduce the material to the trade and designed and delivered a
2.5 kilo box with cellulose tissue sheets cut in a suitable size (35X40 cm). The package was
wrapped in blue paper and sealed with an adhesive tape with a drawing of a baby on it.
The parents just took some sheets from the box, folded them in three layers and placed a
sheet of gauze fabric on top so that the paper should not stick to the babys skin and put the
pad in a cloth or a pair of trousers. To make the cellulose tissue really soft for the babys
bottom, the manufacturers used a special quality of pulp, called silk-pulp.
This tissue box was sold in the retail trade from 1936 to 1945. Paulistrm produced around
2-3000 tons annually which corresponded to about 70 million diapers.3
Paulistrm continued to work on cellulose materials for diapers but did not offer a product
called a disposable diapera two-piece combination consisting of a disposable cellulose insert
and a reusable pantuntil 1942.4 After the war, Paulistrm began packaging the cellulose fluff
in plastic mesh to keep it from sticking to babies skin. After 1950, the company offered this
productthe roll diaperin long rolls that consumers could cut and insert into pants.
In the late 1940s, a few other manufacturers of two-piece diapers appeared across Europe. In
1947, for example, Valerie Hunter Gordon, a young British mother who was fed up with messy
cloth diapers, developed a two-piece model consisting of a disposable paper insert with cotton
wool attached and a waterproof pant. The product worked well enough and attracted notice.
After selling more than 400 units, she arranged in 1949 for Robinson & Sons, a maker of
bandages and other medical products, to manufacture two-piece diapers under the brand name
Paddi Pad. Robinson did little to promote the business, however, and it soon languished.5
By the time Robinson began making Paddi Pads, an American maker of medical products such
as bandages and ointments and powders was already pursuing the second path into disposable
diapers based on deep knowledge of cotton and newer synthetic fabrics as absorbent material.
In 1938, Chicopee Manufacturing Company, a wholly owned and autonomous subsidiary of
Johnson & Johnson, had introduced CHIX gauze diapers, which combined the sturdiness of the
traditional birdseye weave with higher absorbency and softness. Sales of CHIX remained
modest until after World War II, when, according to the exaggerated claims of the companys
marketing literature, it climbed to a major position in the baby products market.6

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Meanwhile, J&Js senior management pushed to diversify the companys businessa challenge
that Chicopee management embraced eagerly. In the late 1940s, Chicopee also introduced an
array of cellulose-based disposable products for hospitals and consumers such as bed coverings,
absorbent pads, feminine protection pads, adult incontinence products, and baby products.
This last category included CHUX Disposable Diapers, soft and absorbent with waterproof
backing and designed to provide complete baby protection without panties and aimed at the
needs of the traveling American family. CHUX was the first one-piece model, although it did
not have a fastening system. Chicopee also sold a lower-cost two-piece diaper for more
frequent use. The CHIX Pad and Panty combined a highly absorbent pulp fiber disposable
insert and a waterproof pant with snaps for easy fastening.7
In many Western European countries and in North America, manufacturers were well aware of
opportunities created by post-World War II population growth, although most believed that
disposable inserts and diapers would remain novelty items given a significant price premium
over cotton diapersa factor of ten or more, depending on the model. Disposables were
marketed through pharmacies, hospitals, medical supply houses, and department stores.
Demand built up gradually, although faster in Sweden, in part because consumers valued the
clear advantages of disposables and a strong domestic paper industry could offer them at a
relatively low premium over the price of imported cotton diapers.
In the 1950s, another Swedish company, textile-maker Mlnlycke, took over technical and
market leadership from Paulistrm, continuing to develop two-piece models. Mlnlyckes QuikDiaper (also called Instant Diaper), introduced in 1957 featured a pear-shaped insert that was
tailored to the babys body and was especially effective in capturing urine.8 Meanwhile, other
producers emerged across Europe. In France, for example, Peaudouce and Calines cultivated a
growing market for the two-piece disposable, while Paul Hartmann AG in Germany, Ontex in
Belgium, and Fater in Italy, among other producers, also entered the business. By the mid1960s, the product was available throughout Europe and was known familiarly as Swedish
pants (Schwedenwindel in Germany; pantolini svedese in Italy). In a few countriesin
Sweden, Finland, and France, for examplemany families used these products on a daily basis.
Elsewhere, it was more common for them to be used as supplements to traditional cotton
diapers for night-time use or when traveling or for special occasions.
The market in North America evolved in similar ways. As J&Js diapers achieved modest
success, other manufacturers appeared. By the early 1950s, Kendall Corporation, a direct
competitor to J&J in bandages and surgical dressings, and Parke-Davis, a pharmaceutical and
medical supply company, had disposable diapers or absorbent inserts on the market. They
were joined soon after by Playtex, a maker of womens undergarments and female protection
products, which imported technology and know-how from Mlnlycke. By the middle of the
decade, disposable diapers were found in 80 percent of American households with infants,
although they accounted for less than one percent of diaper changes due to the high expense.
Prices typically ran abovesometimes well aboveten cents per diaper, while cloth diapers sold
for 1-2 cents each and diaper services typically charged 3-5 cents per diaper.9
Meanwhile, other competitors and new approaches were beginning to emerge, and a dramatic
breakthrough was to come from another new entrant, consumer products giant Procter &
Gamble.

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Key Lessons of the Second Period (1930s-1950s)

Disposable diapers were developed simultaneously in Europe and North America

between the 1930s and 1950s, with most progress after World War II. Manufacturers
interest reflected technological advances in paper making, development of more
absorbent materials, and growing understanding of consumer desires and market
opportunity.

Two alternative designs competed: the two-piece product pioneered in Sweden and
generally more popular in Europe than in North America; and a one-piece model
developed by Johnson & Johnson for a relatively small market niche in the United States.

Consumers everywhere showed interest in disposables but manufacturers perceived

them as a specialty product with limited potential due to their high cost relative to
cotton diapers.

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3. Rapid Adoption (1960s-1980s)

Disposable diapers rapidly overtook cotton diapers in country after country around the world
during the period between the late 1960s and the late 1980s. By the end of the period, the
replacement of cotton diapers was virtually complete across Europe and America and well under
way in Latin America and Asia. The rate of substitution occurred with a swiftness and on a
scale having few parallels in business history: the replacement of analog by digital formats in
communications and media; of typewriters by personal computers; of multipurpose household
soap by synthetic detergents; of wireline telephones by cell phones. Such massive substitutions
take place only when consumers recognize and value the overwhelming superiority of an
innovation. Such is the case with disposable diapers.
Consumers switched to disposables for many reasons, including the inherent advantages of the
product. Most parents found disposables easier to use. They liberated parents, especially
mothers, from time-consuming chores and enabled them to spend more time in other ways,
including with their children. Meanwhile, disposablesunlike cotton diapersimproved every
year as manufacturers introduced new designs and features such as improved fastening
systems, increased absorbency, and closer fit. Once disposables became widely available at
affordable prices, consumers flocked to buy and use them.
The rapid adoption of disposable diapers unfolded in two stages: 1) the commercialization of
inexpensive one-piece diapers in the 1960s and 1970s; and 2) the introduction of ultrathin
models using new absorbent agents in the mid-1980s.
The dramatic success of the disposable diaper in the mass market began with a manufacturing
breakthrough at Procter & Gamble in the United States. In the mid-1950s, the company, like
Johnson & Johnson, began a determined push to expand and diversify its business beyond its
traditional categories in soap, synthetic detergents, and fats and oils. P&G used a combination
of proprietary research and acquisitions to enter other new businesses ranging from peanut
butter, to cake mixes, to potato snacks, to coffee. Among the new areas was disposable
diapers, an opportunity originally suggested, according to company lore, by the nun in charge
of the nursery at Cincinnati Catholic Hospital. Certainly P&G was well aware of the huge market
opportunity given the post-World War II baby boom in the United States.
In 1956, P&G engineer Victor Mills set up a small-scale project to investigate disposables, but
the pace of work accelerated the following year after P&G acquired Charmin Paper Mills, a
maker of consumer paper products such as bathroom tissues and paper towels. The company
believed it could expand the market for disposable diapers significantly by combining its new
expertise in absorbent paper products with its capabilities in mass production and mass
distribution. P&Gs hopes were eventually realized though it took more than a decade for the
company to succeed.10
P&G initially developed a two-piece diaper similar to those already on the market in Europe and
the United States but featuring a folded insert for improved fit and absorbency. In the summer
of 1958, however, P&G failed miserably in its initial test market in Dallas, Texas, in part because
mothers disliked using the plastic pant in hot weather. The test results were so discouraging
that P&G nearly abandoned the project.

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After considering an array of options, P&G decided to try again, this time focusing on a simple
one-piece disposable consisting of an absorbent tissue core bonded to a plastic back. The
product possessed several innovative features in addition to basic design, including a
hydrophobic top sheet made of rayon to help keep moisture in the absorbent tissue layer, and a
large plastic back sheet to help contain leakage. Like a cloth diaper of J&Js one-piece Chux,
P&Gs disposable was fastened with pins. P&G test marketed its new disposable, now branded
as Pampers, in Peoria, Illinois in 1961. Consumers rated the product highly although sales
remained disappointing due to prices still four or five times above those of cotton diapers.
P&G concluded that large demand for the product would materialize only if the company could
lower prices by 40 percent or more. During the next several years, engineers focused on a new
manufacturing process to simplify and speed up production while also redesigning the product
to use less and lower-cost material. Perfecting the new production process turned out to be
the most complex manufacturing challenge P&G had ever faced, involving developing and
debugging a massive, block-long continuous-process machine capable of producing up to 400
diapers per minute.11 In 1964, the new process was ready for another test market, this time in
Indianapolis, Indiana. Introduced at less than 6 cents per diaper, Pampers quickly sold out the
initial allocation, and consumers clamored for more.
During the next several years, the company rolled out Pampers across the United States in
small (infant), medium (daytime), and large (nighttime) sizes. By the end of the decade, the
product had become P&Gs second-largest brand.
In addition to the manufacturing
breakthrough, a key part of the companys success was clever marketing, including programs to
convert hospital maternity wards and day-care centers to disposables and free samples given to
new mothers.
Although P&G had expected Pampers initially to attract affluent consumers, it found the product
had immediate and widespread appeal across all segments of the market. The company once
received a grateful phone call from an impoverished woman who lived in a New York tenement
building. Before Pampers, the woman said, she was forced to take a pail of soiled diapers down
four floors and then walk through an unsafe neighborhood to the laundromat located two
blocks away. A similar pattern emerged later when Pampers was introduced worldwide.
Consumers in less developed countries, where household washing machines and dryers were
less common, rushed to buy disposables.12
Meanwhile, other manufacturers quickly countered the introduction of Pampers. In Europe,
Mlnlycke introduced its one-piece Combinett diaper in 1967. Featuring a tape-fastening
system, Combinett was the first complete one-piece model. In the United States, KimberlyClark, a leader in paper tissues and feminine hygiene products, had worked on disposable
diapers for years before introducing Kimbies in 1968. Kimbies featured several key innovations
that became industry standards, including a contoured shape, a new absorbent material (fluff
pulp instead of tissue pulp), a spun-bonded polypropylene liner, and adhesive tape fasteners.13
In 1971, Johnson & Johnson began to phase out the original Chux line in favor of a new
premium design with an especially soft feel and sold under the companys brand name. Several
other producers also entered, including some that manufactured store brands for leading
retailers and supermarket chains. By 1980, disposables accounted for more than 90 percent of
all diaper changes in North America.14
In Europe, low cost, one-piece models did not sweep the market quite as quickly or evenly
although the eventual outcome was the same. P&G began production of Pampers in West
Germany in 1973, and the brand soon became the domestic market leader. In Scandinavia and
France, however, the two-piece models remained popular for a time.
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Mlnlycke found that consumers remained comfortable with two-piece models and did not
promote its one-piece Combinett aggressively. In France, Peaudouce and Lotus continued to
promote a T-shaped insert that was particularly effective in absorbing liquid. One-piece models
became available in 1975 through imports from Scandinavia, Germany, and the United States as
well as from local producers such as Linett and Tendresse. The one-piece models gained
between 8-10 market share points per year, eventually achieving market dominance in the mid1980s.15
Meanwhile, low-cost disposables of both types (one-piece and two-piece) hastened the
replacement of cotton diapers in most European countries. According to data compiled by the
European Disposables and Nonwovens Association (EDANA), between 1970 and 1979, the
percentage of the total market accounted for by disposables surged from 52 to 97 percent in
France; from 41 to 85 percent in Germany; and from 28 to 75 percent in Switzerland. Market
penetration already was high in Scandinavia in 1970 but surpassed 95 percent by the end of the
decade. Only in the United Kingdom and in The Netherlands did replacement proceed more
slowly, largely due to the entrenched strength of local diaper service companies.16
The ultimate and nearly complete victory of the low-cost one-piece disposable across Europe
awaited a series of technological improvements and innovations between the mid-1970s and
mid-1980s. The first was a superior fitted shape with elastic leg openings. P&G introduced
these features in 1976 in the United States on a second disposable diaper brand, Luvs.
However, P&G could not manufacture Luvs on its existing diaper machines, so the company
offered them as a premium brand for affluent consumers. Kimberly-Clark, meanwhile, was
working on a successor to Kimbies that would outperform Pampers and the Johnson &
Johnsons. Like Luvs, the new Kimberly-Clark design featured a superior fitted shape and
elastic leg openings, but it could be manufactured in high volume. Kimberly-Clark launched the
new model in 1977 as Kleenex Super Dry and renamed it the following year as Huggies. Sold
at a price point between Pampers and Luvs, Huggies became a huge hit in the United States,
passing Pampers as the leading brand in the market in the late-1980s. 17 Meanwhile, fitted
designs with elastic cuffs spread to Europe, where SCA (which bought Mlnlycke in 1975),
Peaudouce, Paul Hartmann, Ontex, and other manufacturers adopted them both for premium
and private-label brands. The new models proved extremely popular and accelerated the
replacement of cotton diapers in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands, as well as of twopiece models in other nations.
A second major improvement in diaper design in these years involved the use of
superabsorbent polymers (SAPs), which enabled diapers to be shrunk dramaticallyby 30
percent or morein size.
The application of SAPs to diapers was patented nearly
simultaneously in 1966 in the United States by Carlyle Harmon of Johnson & Johnson and by
Billy Gene Harper of Dow Chemical. 18 The researchers found that the SAP could absorb
between thirty and sixty times their weight in liquida huge advantage over conventional
materials such as fluff pulp. European and North American diaper manufacturers began
experimenting with SAP as a partial replacement for fluff pulp in the early 1980s. Credit for
commercial demonstration, however, goes to Japanese manufacturer Uni-Charm, which
introduced its slimmed-down Moonies in 1983, with Kao, another Japanese competitor, in hot
pursuit. These innovators used 1-2 grams of SAP in each diaper and demonstrated the power
and appeal of the thin-diaper concept. Subsequently, other manufacturers increased the
amount of SAP in diapers, which permitted still more shrinkage. By the mid-1980s, ultrathin
premium disposables were about one-half the size of their predecessors. During the next ten
years, further improvements and sophistication in working with SAPs enabled another 50
percent reduction in size.19

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The thin and ultrathin models proved extremely popular around the world and, as prices came
down and the technology spread into store brands, completed the replacement of cotton
diapers and two-piece disposables.20 By the late 1980s, disposables accounted for more than
95 percent of diaper changes in Japan, North America, and most European countries. Even in
the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, thin and ultrathin models tipped the balance away
from cotton diapers and diaper services and by the mid-1990s claimed market shares
comparable to those in most other European nations.
The new models delivered the traditional advantages of disposables in a smaller package. Not
much bigger than cloth undergarments, they enabled infants and young children to move freely
and be dressed fashionably. They produced additional economic and social benefits including
savings in distribution, shipping, merchandising, and storage while also generating less waste.
Meanwhile, increasing use of disposable diapers correlated with observed clinical benefits for
individual children as well as children in group settings.
These benefits included reduced instances of diaper dermatitis and improved skin wellness from
drier skin and more stable skin pH.21
Key Lessons of the Third Period (1960s-1980s)

Low-cost manufacturing reduced the price premium for disposables relative to cloth
diapers and facilitated rapid substitution in the 1970s and 1980s in most developed
countries and in a growing number of developing nations.

Once they became affordable, disposables appealed to all segments of the market,
where consumers clearly preferred them to cloth diapers.

One-piece designs, which simplify use and cleanup, quickly won over customers in
Europe and dislodged two-piece models.

Competition among manufacturers resulted in a steady stream of innovations and

improvements in premium diapers, which became better fitting, easier to use, and
significantly smaller during the period. At the same time, the growth of store brands,
which gradually incorporated many innovations, helped hold prices down and made the
product accessible to consumers in low-income households.

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4. Continuous Improvement (since 1990)

Since 1990, market trends in disposable diapers that emerged in earlier years have continued to
play out. In the premium segment, consumers have been treated nearly every year to new
features and enhancements, as well as to the occasional creation of new related products such
as training pants and convertibles (diapers that resemble training pants and can be pulled on
but also open on the side for easy changes). At the same time, budget-conscious consumers
have continued to benefit from the widespread availability and declining real prices of
inexpensive store brands.
The opening of markets in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and India and
opportunities in Latin America and other developing markets have propelled the industrys
growth. With globalization, the number of producers has declined somewhat, but strong rivals
are situated in every region of the world, and the resulting fierce competitive rivalry has
benefited consumers.
With the industrys target no longer dislodging cloth diapers,
manufacturers have focused on constant improvement to disposables, and they have
introduced innovations at a rapid and sustained pace.
In the premium diaper segment, not only have diapers become thinner, but a steady stream of
innovations has made them more appealing to consumers and their children. The late 1980s
and early 1990s, for example, saw the development of gender-specific diapers optimized for the
different anatomies of male and female children. Innovations since then have improved
leakage control (control shields and guards, curved elastic leg openings, waste barriers);
comfort (stretch sides and waste bands, cloth-like covers, breathable materials); hygiene (new
liner materials, medicated surfaces, rash guard); ease of use (re-sealable tapes, Velcro and
other mechanical fasteners); and aesthetics (cover prints and designs, pleasing scents). Moving
beyond the traditional sizes of small, medium, and large, producers have introduced sizes and
shapes based on stages of child development, with different version corresponding to a childs
size, weight, frequency of urination or bowel movement, and control over these functions.
Additional versions are tailored to particular purposes such as extra-capacity night-time use
and models suitable for use in wading and splashing pools. Most of these innovations are
spread quickly around the world, with especially rapid sequencing between North America and
Europe where Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark are market leaders.22
In 1989, Kimberly-Clark introduced Huggies Pull-Ups, the first disposable training pant to
facilitate toilet training. Children can dress themselves in training pants and learn to use them
just like traditional undergarments. This innovation created a whole new and growing category
of disposables. Consumer response has been strong and many diaper manufacturers now offer
them, with Kimberly-Clark still the global market leader. 23 As a result of this competition,
training pants have been upgraded as rapidly and continuously as diapers, with steady
improvement in performance features and development of specialized night-time and
swimmable versions. Meanwhile, in 2003 in the United States and in 2004 in Europe KimberlyClark introduced convertible models, which appear to be another successful innovation.24
In the value segment, many significant innovations and improvements from the premium
brands have migrated to store brands, which deliver excellent performance at affordable prices.
Available in convenience stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, department stores, and mass
merchandisers, store brands are ubiquitous throughout North America and Europe. The growth
of this segment also held prices down. Between 1997 and 2004, for example, real prices of
disposable diapers in Europe declined by 20 percent.25

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Key Lessons of the Fourth Period (since 1990)

As the focus of competition shifted from replacing cloth diapers, the pace of innovation
in disposables accelerated dramatically, resulting in improved products and more choices
for consumers in the premium segment, while the growth of the value segment exerted
downward pressure on prices.

The benefits to consumers of modern disposable diapers are diverse, extensive and
profound: ease of use; liberation of parents from time-consuming duties; happier
healthier children.

**
The disposable diaper is one of the most significant consumer product
developments of the twentieth century. In just a few years after commercialization,
disposables virtually replaced traditional cloth diapers as consumers recognized and
valued overwhelming advantages in ease of use, increased comfort, better hygiene,
and improvement in the amount and quality of time parents can have with their
children. At the same time, the industrys competitive rivalry and history of
continuous innovation and cost reduction have enabled parents from all parts of the
world and all economic circumstances to benefit socially as well as economically.

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See http://www.gpoabs.com.mx/cricher/history.htm (accessed July 2005) for an overview of the history of the
diaper.

Bengt G. Johannson narrative; U.S. Patents 19418 (1858), 318,141 (1885), 342,494 (1886), 1,694,161 (1928),
Des. 95,253 (1935).

Johannson narrative.

http://www.richernet.com/timeline.htm. Accessed April 2004.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/20050228_nappy_inventor.shtml . Accessed March 2005;

http://www.didyouknow.cd/history/20thcentury.htm. Accessed March 2005. In 1979, Robinson re-entered the
industry with an all-in-one (one-piece) model branded as Cosifit. This likewise failed to stir consumer interest
though an Internet search indicates that the Cosifit brand still lives in some countries. See
http://www.robinsoncare.com/history.htm. Accessed March 2005.

Chicopee Manufacturing Company, Baby Products Division, undated brochure; On Chicopee, see Lawrence G.
Foster, Robert Wood Johnson (State College, PA: Lillian Press, 1999), p. 129.

Chicopee Manufacturing Company, Baby Products Division, undated brochure; Foster, Robert Wood Johnson,
p.309; Foster, A Company That Cares: One Hundred Year Illustrated History of Johnson & Johnson (New
Brunswick, NJ, 1986), p. 116; Carlos Richer website.

Urban Widlund interview, October 19, 2004.

The Disposable Diaper Industry in 1974 (Harvard Business School Case Services, 9-380-175), p. 2. The
Boater, a fashionable 2-piece diaper product sold in upscale department stores, sold for $1.95 each.

10

Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell, and Rowena Olegario, Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at
Procter & Gamble (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004), Chapters 5 and 6, esp. pp. 129-138; The
Disposable Diaper Industry in 1974, p. 2.

11

Dyer, Dalzell, and Olegario, Rising Tide, p. 132; The Disposable Diaper Industry in 1974, p. 2.

12

Dyer, Dalzell, and Olegario, Rising Tide, p. 134.

13

Robert Spector, Shared Values: A History of Kimberly-Clark (Lyme, Connecticut: Greenwich Publishing, 1997).
Pp. 111-112; Thomas Heinrich and Bob Batchelor, Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer
Revolution in American Business (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004), pp. 184-198.

14

The Disposable Diaper Industry in 1974, pp. 2-3.

15

Strategies (1986); data furnished by Group Hygiene, September 2004.

16

Percentage of Disposable Diapers in Relation to Total Potential Market, 1970-1979, EDANA.

17

Heinrich and Batchelor, Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies, pp. 190-196.

18

Malcolm Gladwell, Smaller: The Disposable Diaper and the Meaning of Progress, New Yorker, November 26,
2001; online version http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_11_26_a_diaper.htm. Accessed August 2004;

19

Kimberly-Clark, Disposable Diaper Industry Historical Summary.

20

La Course aux Superlatifs, Points de Vente, April 15, 1989, pp. 90-92.

21

Hygiene Products Manufacturers Group, European Disposables and Nonwovens Association, Diapers: Health

Benefits and Environmental Aspects (Brussels, 2001), pp. 4-6.

22

Kimberly-Clark began major investments in Europe in 1994 and acquired the Peaudouce brand from SCA two
years later. Since then, Huggies has become the number two brand across Europe after P&Gs Pampers.

23

Heinrich and Batchelor, Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies, p. 196.

24

Kimberly-Clark, Timeline of Disposable Training Pants, 1989-Present.

25

http://www.hapco.edana.org/news/index.asp?qID=10; Irina Barbalova, Disposable Hygiene Products: Global

Trends and Overview, Outlook 2003, p. 18.

The Winthrop Group, Inc. on behalf of

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