Kimberly-Clark targets bathroom for paper towels

By EMILY FREDRIX

NEW YORK

Kimberly-Clark Corp. is looking to replace the traditional bathroom hand towel with something made of paper, a bid to take advantage of lingering swine flu fears.

The company's Kleenex brand hopes consumers use its new thick, paper hand towels to replace traditional cloth towels.

The hand towels, expected on nationwide shelves within a month, come in boxes of three different shades of brushed metallics like blue and green that carry 60 sheets for a suggested retail price of $2.99. The sheets are a hybrid of the sturdiness of paper towels but with more softness similar to facial tissues. They have no perfumes or dyes.

It's one of a bevy new products from hand sanitizers to pre-moistened towelettes introduced since such items enjoyed solid sales in the early days of the swine flu pandemic.

Manufacturers created 19 percent more new products in those categories, along with paper towels and facial tissue, in the 52 weeks ending in late January compared with the same period last year, according to research firm Nielsen.

Many of the products are variations of what's already on the market. Kleenex's hand towels aim to create a new category altogether.

If they sell well, it could bring more products from competitors seeking a big payoff. Dollar sales of paper towels alone were worth $3.5 billion in the year ending in late January, according to Nielsen.

Kleenex said everyone understands they have to wash their hands more now but they're not sure how best to dry them. The campaign pitches the product by asking people how they dry their hands, and then suggesting they change that behavior.

Typically, people use a cloth towel hanging from a rack in the bathroom, but they don't know how long it has been there, or what germs may be on it, said Ann Vanevenhoven, senior brand manager for the new brand.

So the company uses words like "clean" and "fresh" in ads to suggest trying its disposable hand towels, which are packaged so they can either stand upright on a counter top or hang in towel racks.

"Consumers really didn't need anything more than a nudge and a better alternative to kind of gravitate toward this behavior," Vanevenhoven said of the disposable hand towels.

Swine flu and cold season fears had been pushing up sales for manufacturers and retailers around the country, but sales are dropping. Drugstore chains Walgreen Co. and Rite Aid Corp. said they saw weaker sales of cold and flu season products last month.

"We do think there is a solid growth opportunity, even if just a fraction of consumers shift," Vanevenhoven said, from washable towels to disposable ones.