By Jessica Wohl. N is overhauling its Depend line to offer disposable underwear tailored to men and women as it prepares for an influx of aging Americans who need incontinence products. Depend has been around for nearly 25 years, but this is the first time it is offering separate versions of absorbent underwear for men and women.
The products, which look more like traditional cotton underwear than an adult diaper, will be available in North American stores in March and appear in Europe later in While Depend is a smaller business than other Kimberly-Clark products such as Huggies diapers or Kleenex tissues, it expects an aging population will help boost sales.
Baby Boomers, the generation of Americans born between and , are heading toward retirement with the oldest set to turn 65 in Many of them are already caring for parents who may use incontinence products. Underwear currently accounts for about 75 percent of Depend brand sales. Six unisex versions of Depend underwear will be replaced by six versions for women and two versions for men. They offer 28 percent better leakage protection than before, Kimberly-Clark said.
They used television ads portraying very active adults or a celebrity promoting their leak proof diapers for adults. Disposable baby diapers started being sold in and were quite successful.
Disposable adult diapers would not be introduced for a while due to the difficulty in marketing a product of such a sensitive nature. Before the invention of disposable diapers, adults and even children would use cloth diapers that needed cleaned regularly and then reused. During this period, adults continued to have limited access to disposable incontinence products, but luckily this would change. They had little success in selling them beyond hospitals. However, another company would soon attempt to enter the market.
Depend incontinence products were first marketed under the Conform brand. They used television ads portraying very active adults or a celebrity promoting their products. This helped show customers that adult incontinence is an ordinary condition no one should be ashamed of and proved a very successful tactic. Depend Incontinence products for adults were introduced in , effectively starting the market for adult Diapers.
Depend began with a test product consisting of liners that were held on by elastic belts. The liners could be purchased in either regular or extra absorbency. Following this, Depend Shields were introduced and were meant for moderate to heavy incontinence.
They came in regular and extra absorbency. As the best adult diaper manufacturer, Depend continuously improved their product. In , Depend introduced fitted briefs. These were intended as heavy-duty leak-proof diapers for adults with heavy bladder incontinence as well as bowel incontinence.
By , every variety of Depend adult diapers came in two different types of covers, either plastic or non-woven covers designed to imitate cloth. Additionally, they came in a range of sizes and with plastic covers of a light green color. At this point, packaging was simply large, simple cardboard boxes. These early Depend were very nearly the only adult incontinence product on the market and were certainly the best adult diaper of their time.
However, they used padding very similar to disposable baby diapers and had not changed much to account for an adult's needs. In , Depend changed, and they began using an Absorb-Lock core which becomes a gel when exposed to moisture, further preventing leakage.
This advancement significantly improved Depend and made its way into baby diapers as well. By ten years later, Depend had introduced another option to their lineup, disposable Pull-Up Adult Diapers. At this point, these adult diapers were made to simulate cloth with an absorbent strip passing down the center of the product with two size options, medium and large.
These diapers were for light-duty, and Depend warned they were not suitable for nighttime protection. Finally, in the s, Depend briefs revamped their appearance to white with a green tint, making the appearance that we know today.
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