You bring back to many 'unpleasant' memories with this post.

We have 7 children, and we used cloth.  They were more expensive up front
but ROI was very quick!

They're either teenagers or married now.

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 10:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] The Real Story About HP's Announcement...


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Guy Avenell wrote:
It took a marketing campaign to change peoples perceptions.

And when, out of necessity while travelling, one rather inventive engineer
name Victor Mills came up with the idea of a disposable diaper, Proctor &
Gamble thought they had a hit on their hands, which they named Pampers
(Mills was also instrumental in the development of Ivory, Pringles Potato
Chips, Duncan Hines Cake Mixes, and JIF Peanut Butter, and makes for an
interesting web-searching session). But P&G discovered that they had to
price them below the "total cost of ownership" of cloth diapers, and had to
market them aggressively, until everyone became used to them. Once the
economy had changed enough, and cloth diapers and their accoutrements were
harder to find, and diaper services had all but gone out of business, they
were able to raise the price on disposables. Now, it is cheaper to use cloth
diapers, but almost no one bothers.

Is the replacement better than what it replaces, or merely new and
different? New is a fairly perishable quality.

An fun and interesting read on the effects of remarketing (and on those well
known products that were initial failures) is "Getting It Right the Second
Time".

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com

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