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Pampers, on the record: An interview with Jodi Allen
By Jeremiah | June 03, 2010 | 13 comments / Comment now
Jodi Allen is the Vice President for North America of Baby Care products under Procter & Gamble brands. Allen has served as the most public face of the company in addressing consumer concerns over Pampers' new formulation, a design change which has led to widespread consumer complaints of skin irritation and severe diaper rashes that now fuel a Facebook group nearly 11,000 members strong, near-daily reports in television, print and web news outlets, and multiple lawsuits seeking class-action status.
Pampers has relied on a range of voices, from R&D team member and "regular mom" Kerry Hailey to community manager and social media face "Tricia@Pampers," to tout the benefits of the Dry Max absorptive core, which uses less paper pulp and significantly more petroleum-based superabsorbent polymers. But when the BM hit the fan, the brand began relying heavily on statements from Jodi Allen as well as from P&G Baby Care external relations director Bryan McCleary.
We first contacted both Bryan McCleary and multiple colleagues of his several weeks ago, when we first began researching the Dry Max issue. So we were pleased to get a call back from McCleary late last week offering us a chance to speak with McCleary and with R&D director Lisa Sanchez - and, as it turned out, Jodi Allen herself.
We grilled Sanchez for details on Pampers adult skin testing protocols, because our Pampers Dry Max research proposal has now been fully funded by consumers - and, in a public gesture we aren't overlooking, significantly overfunded - and we are working hard to be ready to do the bulk of our testing this weekend.
We also collected official comments from Jodi Allen (we have done the same, in times of crisis, with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik and Carter's CEO Michael Casey), because interview opportunities like this offer a rare chance to get company heads on the record on details that have been swirling about (and swirl still). Getting CEOs "on the record" gives us a fix on the facts as the company sees them, which we can then research independently to confirm or refute.
Here's what we got from Jodi Allen. If you've read our previous reporting on the Pampers Dry Max story, you'll see some statements that surprise you - statement's we're working to corroborate as you read.
ZRecs: Tell us how you rolled out Pampers Dry Max. Our readers are very interested in understanding the transition.
Allen: By the fall of 2008, we began shipping Pampers Dry Max diapers [in packaging that did not promote a new absorbent core]. We did not ship both types of diapers within single packages - every package had either one or the other [i.e. the old or the new]. We converted one manufacturing line at a time until we had converted them all. By November 2009, we had fully converted our production. We have two U.S. plants, and a small percentage of Pampers are made in Mexico - those sourcing the West Coast.
ZRecs: Interesting. Have you found any patterns of complaints that might be tied to a particular distribution chain or factory?
Allen: We have mined the data in every way we can. Every single diaper we sell has an individual code we can track not only to a given facility but to ingredient lots, the crew on the line at the time the diaper was produced... There was nothing done for supply chain reasons. Some consumers indicate that we did this to save money. It was a major investment on our part! We planned it out so we could absorb the cost effectively without raising prices.
ZRecs: We heard complaints that Pampers were being sold in the "original packaging" with graphics or marketing copy indicating a mesh liner was present, but that Dry Max diapers inside did not have the liner.
Allen: We changed the packaging so that is not the case.
ZRecs: You removed references to a mesh liner?
Allen: Yes. But this idea of new product in old packaging, this is standard industry practice. It is a product improvement, and product improvements do not require labeling changes. We would never put features on a package that is not in the diapers - we have never had a feature advertised that is not in there.
ZRecs: So there were no diapers sold without the mesh liners in packaging that showed the mesh liner as a feature - even diapers that had had the mesh liner removed but did not have the Dry Max core?
Allen: Any [Cruisers] diaper with a mesh liner has the previous core. There is no interim design with the old core but no mesh liner. There is one change we made later in the development - the coloring of the core. The dye used is a very safe product, and passed all the safety tests. Dry Max is a great new invention, but the materials are the same materials we were already using. [Update: After questions from readers, we asked for and received clarification from Pampers on this point. Cruisers have had the mesh lining removed, but Swaddlers still contain it.]
ZRecs: I'm curious to hear your views on the role of Facebook and other social media channels in communicating with consumers. We've heard stories of people being banned from Pampers' Facebook "fan page" after complaining about the new diapers.
Allen: The only reason anyone has been banned from our page is for violating stated policy, and our policies are clear and public and consistent with Facebook recommendations. We believe social media is an important tool for us to engage with parents. Our Pampers.com site is robust and useful to interact with parents on. We have a great relationship with consumers there starting three years ago when we created the site to interact with them. ...
Interestingly, the [Facebook group "Bring Back the Old Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers"] was created out of frustrations that we put new product in old packaging, and it had a very low membership. Then it shifted to the fact that the diapers leak. Then it moved to cost savings, accusing us of making the change to the diapers in order to save money. Then it moved to diaper rashes. Sometime in April the term "chemical burn" was introduced. That's when things started taking off.
ZRecs: We read that you initially joined the group and discussed the issues with them.
Allen: We want to talk to consumers. I thought the right thing to do was to engage. But they kicked me [out of the group]. Over time the membership grew and I felt we needed to re-engage, but I had been blocked from the group. So I created a second ID, very transparently, then joined again, and tried to join the discussion. [Allen was kicked out of the group again.] Honestly I wish we still could engage.
ZRecs: We received a written response to a question we posed to Pampers through one of the bloggers you brought in for your Dry Max tour, addressing the discrepancy between numbers of rashes we had seen reported. Pampers stated that the two per million figure was the number of complaints of rashes, while the one in five million figure was for "severe" rashes, and that you do track rash severity in your complaint reporting. Do I have that right?
Allen/McCleary: Yes.
ZRecs: Do you know how many consumer complaints the Consumer Product Safety Commission has received regarding Dry Max diapers? Do they share those numbers with you?
Allen: We do not have those numbers. When they call the CPSC, the CPSC gives them a special number they can call to follow up with us. I don't have the exact number of those calls, and we don't know if every consumer who calls the CPSC then calls us. But the number of calls we've received on that line has been less than 2,000.
Lisa Sanchez, R&D (also in on this call): The level of complaints has not been unusual. We have a baseline level of complaints that occurs with any product change. When we changed from non-Sesame Street to Sesame Street graphics, for example, leakage complaints went up. Based on over ten years doing this I can predict how the change in any feature of our product will affect the level of complaints. And the number of complaints we have received for Dry Max has been below my predictions.
Allen: Regardless of that, every consumer who calls us, we take their complaints very seriously and we follow up. Diaper rash in babies is a quite common occurrence. Disposable diapers significantly decrease the incidence of rashes. And 10% of all diaper rashes are quite serious.
We're all parents - the large majority of our team here are parents. If I thought there was one iota of a chance that our diapers were causing diaper rashes, we would be doing something about it. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that Dry Max diapers are not causing diaper rashes, and they certainly are not causing chemical burns.
ZRecs: Will you be adding Dry Max technology to Baby Dry diapers? To any other Pampers products? If so, when?
Allen: I don't feel comfortable making statements that would indicate our future plans, for reasons of competition. But I can say that different moms want different choices. Our Baby Dry product does not have Dry Max technology in them, and we want to make sure we offer choices to moms.
ZRecs: I guess the same would go for Luvs?
Allen: Again, I am not comfortable making statements regarding our future product plans.
Stay tuned for results from our DIY Pampers Dry Max tests, which we'll be starting Sunday to test samples of Pampers previous Cruisers diapers and the new Dry Max version on one lucky adult volunteer (me) to check for differences in skin reactivity. And yes, we will ultimately be commenting on the impact of social media on this issue, as promised! There is a bit more information we'd like to gather first. All we can say for the moment is that this story has not ceased to yield interesting avenues for exploration...
Pampers has relied on a range of voices, from R&D team member and "regular mom" Kerry Hailey to community manager and social media face "Tricia@Pampers," to tout the benefits of the Dry Max absorptive core, which uses less paper pulp and significantly more petroleum-based superabsorbent polymers. But when the BM hit the fan, the brand began relying heavily on statements from Jodi Allen as well as from P&G Baby Care external relations director Bryan McCleary.
We first contacted both Bryan McCleary and multiple colleagues of his several weeks ago, when we first began researching the Dry Max issue. So we were pleased to get a call back from McCleary late last week offering us a chance to speak with McCleary and with R&D director Lisa Sanchez - and, as it turned out, Jodi Allen herself.
We grilled Sanchez for details on Pampers adult skin testing protocols, because our Pampers Dry Max research proposal has now been fully funded by consumers - and, in a public gesture we aren't overlooking, significantly overfunded - and we are working hard to be ready to do the bulk of our testing this weekend.
We also collected official comments from Jodi Allen (we have done the same, in times of crisis, with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik and Carter's CEO Michael Casey), because interview opportunities like this offer a rare chance to get company heads on the record on details that have been swirling about (and swirl still). Getting CEOs "on the record" gives us a fix on the facts as the company sees them, which we can then research independently to confirm or refute.
Here's what we got from Jodi Allen. If you've read our previous reporting on the Pampers Dry Max story, you'll see some statements that surprise you - statement's we're working to corroborate as you read.
ZRecs: Tell us how you rolled out Pampers Dry Max. Our readers are very interested in understanding the transition.
Allen: By the fall of 2008, we began shipping Pampers Dry Max diapers [in packaging that did not promote a new absorbent core]. We did not ship both types of diapers within single packages - every package had either one or the other [i.e. the old or the new]. We converted one manufacturing line at a time until we had converted them all. By November 2009, we had fully converted our production. We have two U.S. plants, and a small percentage of Pampers are made in Mexico - those sourcing the West Coast.
ZRecs: Interesting. Have you found any patterns of complaints that might be tied to a particular distribution chain or factory?
Allen: We have mined the data in every way we can. Every single diaper we sell has an individual code we can track not only to a given facility but to ingredient lots, the crew on the line at the time the diaper was produced... There was nothing done for supply chain reasons. Some consumers indicate that we did this to save money. It was a major investment on our part! We planned it out so we could absorb the cost effectively without raising prices.
ZRecs: We heard complaints that Pampers were being sold in the "original packaging" with graphics or marketing copy indicating a mesh liner was present, but that Dry Max diapers inside did not have the liner.
Allen: We changed the packaging so that is not the case.
ZRecs: You removed references to a mesh liner?
Allen: Yes. But this idea of new product in old packaging, this is standard industry practice. It is a product improvement, and product improvements do not require labeling changes. We would never put features on a package that is not in the diapers - we have never had a feature advertised that is not in there.
ZRecs: So there were no diapers sold without the mesh liners in packaging that showed the mesh liner as a feature - even diapers that had had the mesh liner removed but did not have the Dry Max core?
Allen: Any [Cruisers] diaper with a mesh liner has the previous core. There is no interim design with the old core but no mesh liner. There is one change we made later in the development - the coloring of the core. The dye used is a very safe product, and passed all the safety tests. Dry Max is a great new invention, but the materials are the same materials we were already using. [Update: After questions from readers, we asked for and received clarification from Pampers on this point. Cruisers have had the mesh lining removed, but Swaddlers still contain it.]
ZRecs: I'm curious to hear your views on the role of Facebook and other social media channels in communicating with consumers. We've heard stories of people being banned from Pampers' Facebook "fan page" after complaining about the new diapers.
Allen: The only reason anyone has been banned from our page is for violating stated policy, and our policies are clear and public and consistent with Facebook recommendations. We believe social media is an important tool for us to engage with parents. Our Pampers.com site is robust and useful to interact with parents on. We have a great relationship with consumers there starting three years ago when we created the site to interact with them. ...
Interestingly, the [Facebook group "Bring Back the Old Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers"] was created out of frustrations that we put new product in old packaging, and it had a very low membership. Then it shifted to the fact that the diapers leak. Then it moved to cost savings, accusing us of making the change to the diapers in order to save money. Then it moved to diaper rashes. Sometime in April the term "chemical burn" was introduced. That's when things started taking off.
ZRecs: We read that you initially joined the group and discussed the issues with them.
Allen: We want to talk to consumers. I thought the right thing to do was to engage. But they kicked me [out of the group]. Over time the membership grew and I felt we needed to re-engage, but I had been blocked from the group. So I created a second ID, very transparently, then joined again, and tried to join the discussion. [Allen was kicked out of the group again.] Honestly I wish we still could engage.
ZRecs: We received a written response to a question we posed to Pampers through one of the bloggers you brought in for your Dry Max tour, addressing the discrepancy between numbers of rashes we had seen reported. Pampers stated that the two per million figure was the number of complaints of rashes, while the one in five million figure was for "severe" rashes, and that you do track rash severity in your complaint reporting. Do I have that right?
Allen/McCleary: Yes.
ZRecs: Do you know how many consumer complaints the Consumer Product Safety Commission has received regarding Dry Max diapers? Do they share those numbers with you?
Allen: We do not have those numbers. When they call the CPSC, the CPSC gives them a special number they can call to follow up with us. I don't have the exact number of those calls, and we don't know if every consumer who calls the CPSC then calls us. But the number of calls we've received on that line has been less than 2,000.
Lisa Sanchez, R&D (also in on this call): The level of complaints has not been unusual. We have a baseline level of complaints that occurs with any product change. When we changed from non-Sesame Street to Sesame Street graphics, for example, leakage complaints went up. Based on over ten years doing this I can predict how the change in any feature of our product will affect the level of complaints. And the number of complaints we have received for Dry Max has been below my predictions.
Allen: Regardless of that, every consumer who calls us, we take their complaints very seriously and we follow up. Diaper rash in babies is a quite common occurrence. Disposable diapers significantly decrease the incidence of rashes. And 10% of all diaper rashes are quite serious.
We're all parents - the large majority of our team here are parents. If I thought there was one iota of a chance that our diapers were causing diaper rashes, we would be doing something about it. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that Dry Max diapers are not causing diaper rashes, and they certainly are not causing chemical burns.
ZRecs: Will you be adding Dry Max technology to Baby Dry diapers? To any other Pampers products? If so, when?
Allen: I don't feel comfortable making statements that would indicate our future plans, for reasons of competition. But I can say that different moms want different choices. Our Baby Dry product does not have Dry Max technology in them, and we want to make sure we offer choices to moms.
ZRecs: I guess the same would go for Luvs?
Allen: Again, I am not comfortable making statements regarding our future product plans.
Stay tuned for results from our DIY Pampers Dry Max tests, which we'll be starting Sunday to test samples of Pampers previous Cruisers diapers and the new Dry Max version on one lucky adult volunteer (me) to check for differences in skin reactivity. And yes, we will ultimately be commenting on the impact of social media on this issue, as promised! There is a bit more information we'd like to gather first. All we can say for the moment is that this story has not ceased to yield interesting avenues for exploration...
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It’s interesting to read that by the fall of 2008 the Dry-Max were being shipped out in unlabeled packages. That’s exactly when I switched my baby from Swaddlers to Cruisers and he developed the WORST rash I have ever seen. As soon as I switched to the “other” brand, the rash went away. I thought it was just one of those peculiar baby things, but now I guess you can add me to the list of parents who have experienced problems with the new formula. Baby #1 used Cruisers until he was in pull ups, and never had a trace of a rash. Boo, Pampers. What a violation of trust - if you’re going to change your formula, you owe parents a heads up.
“Allen: Any diaper with a mesh liner has the previous core. There is no interim design with the Dry Max core but no mesh liner.”
My daughter got a rash when the mesh liner was removed. There was no DryMax yet. So...what exactly was in the mesh liner that was preventing the diaper rash? I am bound and determined to find a no-mesh, pre-DryMax diaper.
I also believe that if they made a change in the diapers, the packaging should have indicated so. I had no way of knowing which version of the diapers I was getting. I don’t care if that is industry practice or not…
I find it incredibly hard to swallow that Dry Max is a safe and thoroughly researched product. We WERE a loyal Pampers Swaddlers & Cruisers family since our LO was born & were completely happy with both lines of diapers since 2007.
We unknowingly “tested” (I’d consider this to be a blind test as we didn’t suspect we had new diapers immediately) Dry Max diapers (no mesh and with a white scratchy liner, purple had not been introduced yet) in ORIGINAL Cruisers packaging in November 2009. Within days of using the new diapers our LO had experienced day & night-time blowouts, leaks & developed the WORST case of “diaper rash,” or what I NOW believe to be a bad case of allergic contact dermatitis from the diapers. We then figured out the diaper change & stopped using them. We called Pampers & was told that yes, they had been changed & that our experience was not what they expected. We had our $ refunded and was told the H&S;department might be contacting us. This never happened, there was NO follow up. Basically P&G;paid us off & hoped we’d go away.
We are no longer loyal to Pampers and will NEVER use a Pampers product again & will continue to spread the word about what happened to us and MANY other families.
I wouldn’t call the Bring Back the Old Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers FB group “small” at over 10K, sheesh. That’s HALF of the supposed testers of these diapers!
Jodie Allen talks about “choices” for families but then forces these substandard, allergy causing diapers on us? We tried Baby Dry when transitioning out of Swaddlers but found them to be cheap, thick & leaky compared to the Cruisers. So we chose Cruisers with mesh, so very similar to the Swaddlers. Thanks Jodie for taking a product that worked so well for so many.
Pampers told me on the phone that the new dry max came out originally in some of the OLD CRUISER PACKAGING.
This was a fact that even a few weeks ago they were wholly owning up to, even apologizing for, and now they want to minimize it. What happened in between?
What no one has asked pampers, and I wish ZRecs would have asked this, is:
“Is a chemical burn or rash in the diaper area not a chemical burn or rash just because it’s in a diaper area?”
Yes diaper rash is common, but just because there is a rash in the diaper area does not mean it’s not caused by something other than what normally causes a diaper rash. I actually think this whole issues of packaging is giving pampers something to avert everyone’s attention away from the real problem...the chemical issues with the diapers! Who cares what they came in! What matters is that there continue to be babies who are developing severe rashes!
Fortunately, there seem to be more first line health care providers who are becoming aware of it. Pampers would probably have you believe that these health care providers don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m awaiting the day when Ms. Allen proclaims that the ONLY physicians who REALLY could tell the difference between a regular old diaper rash Vs. a chemical reaction are on their payroll...stay tuned, you know it’s coming..
“Diaper rash in babies is a quite common occurrence. Disposable diapers significantly decrease the incidence of rashes.”
Where are her sources for THAT information?
I also notice she didn’t actually answer your question about shipping Dry Max diapers in older packaging.
Thanks for posting this interview.
Jodi Allen is going to owe a lot of people an apology when the results of the CPSC and class action lawsuits come to light!
My understanding is that they admit that Dry Max diapers shipped under the old packaging, but NOT under the packaging that specifically advertised the mesh liner as a feature. They periodically change the advertised features on the package, even when they don’t change the overall package design.
I wonder if there is a mistype or misunderstanding here, “Any [Cruisers] diaper with a mesh liner has the previous core. There is no interim design with the Dry Max core but no mesh liner.” First, the sentence doesn’t seem to make since as written, it contradicts itself. My understand is that the diapers that the interim diapers had a Dry Max core and a white liner with no mesh. That fits with their statement that any diaper with a mesh liner has the older kind of core.
[Becky: It was a mistype, which we’ve now fixed. Thanks for catching and unwinding it. And yes, Pampers’ position is that they switched to the Dry Max core and removed the mesh at the same time, then later changed the coloration to blue. - Ed.]
I have used Pampers Baby Dry since my daughter was born. After finding out that there were changes made to the Cruisers and still sold in their original packaging, I have quit using Pampers. I don’t trust the company anymore and fear that they will switch the Baby Dry diapers without my knowledge.
Since I have not used any Pampers products since my son was in the hospital (and will now be bringing my own cloth diapers with my when I deliver my next baby) I can’t even speak to the rashes, only what I have seen from other parents.
The issue is how Pampers has treated the parents. They can use corporate talk and backtrack on previous statements and her interview sounds pretty convincing, but there are still severe rashes with no other cause but a new diaper.
I can’t wait to see the test results. Sorry you had to be the “lab rat” so to speak but it is definitely for a great cause.
I am so excited for the results of your research. I used Pampers with my first till she was size 3 then switched to Huggies because they didn’t explode. That was 3 years ago. I really wanted to use cloth with our 2nd but hadn’t quite convinced hubby, we used Pampers and Huggies starting out no problem. Then all of a sudden she starts getting a really bad rash around 2 months (guess which brand I was using) Switched to an off-brand to see if that would help her rash it did go away slightly but still very sore and took her to the Dr for some super cream to clear it up. Used that and switched to cloth. Guess what no rash. Hmm…
Firstly, I want to clear the misinformation about our page. We did not remove the posts from Ms. Allen. Facebook in their infinite wisdom have made it so that, if anyone is blocked from a page their posts go with it. Since Ms. Allen never contacted us directly to ask if she could come on our page and ask questions (both times) she was blocked from the page; after she repeatedly ignored direct questions from members of our page she was removed. We gave her a week on the first occasion before blocking her and two days on the second occasion.
Ms Allen, if you are so anxious to ‘ENGAGE’ with consumers why is it that you failed to do so on your own social media Facebook Fanpage. You posted the very same statement on April 29th on your group as well. In fact you have 711 comments to that post. Please do not use us as scapegoats to excuse away your lack of engagement. You had ample opportunity on your fanpage and also on the Pampers Village Site to engage us, but you chose to ignore us or delete our posts.
for the complete response see this post.