The other day I read the bottom of my Kleenex box and discovered an interesting marketing message.

“Take Care with Kleenex tissue. For life’s everyday joys, sorrows and sniffles, reach for the gentle comfort of Kleenex tissues. With the perfect balance of softness and strength, each tissue soothes your sniffles, sneezes and tears and leaves your spirits uplifted.”

Leaves your spirits uplifted?

Puleeese!

The message is also in French – “et vous remonte le moral.”

Si vous plait!

I’m glad this marketing message is on the bottom of the box as it’s so ridiculous. Then again, maybe it should be on the top of the box because often I have to blow my nose after laughing hard.

Marketing Assistance Using Astrology

I thought it might be fun to take a look at Kleenex’s horoscope and offer astrological marketing help.

In the tradition of American dualism, we have two major brands of facial tissue – Kleenex and Puffs. Because there are only two choices (like Republican and Democrat in a presidential election), it may not matter than Kleenex’s marketing message is something to cry about.

According to Wikipedia, Kleenex filed for trademark on July 12, 1924.

Kleenex has sun in Cancer and moon in Scorpio. Cancer and Scorpio are two of the three water signs. Kleenex also has Mars and Uranus in Pisces which form a grand water trine.

The grand water trine is called the “whine trine.”

In addition to sun in Cancer, Kleenex also has Venus, Pluto and Mercury in Cancer.

The hyperbolic, sentimental marketing message now makes sense.

Kleenex’s Neptune is in Leo, Saturn in Libra and Jupiter in Sagittarius.

Current Transits

Before re-branding Kleenex at no cost to them, let’s take a look at the current transits.

Pluto in Capricorn is opposing all that Cancer energy. Looks like some regulation or company restructuring is on the way.

Saturn enters Scorpio in early October and Kleenex may find it can’t pay some debt. Maybe that’s the reason for restructuring. Maybe there is a Chapter 11 in its future.

Neptune in Pisces will conjunct Mars in Pisces so rebranding around Piscean themes (more later) may help. Moving to a watery place (offshore) may also help.

Uranus in Aries squares the Cancer energy saying Kleenex needs to stop weeping and stand up for itself.

Re-Branding

With a grand trine in water, Kleenex has figured out that tissues are about emotions. Joys and sorrows are water feelings and sometimes water signs feel both in one day.

Going with the emotions is good. But they might want to remove the “spirit uplifted,” which is about fire.

By water sign, Cancer is family home, Scorpio is intimate emotional encounters and Pisces is about group and merging feelings.

Possibly Kleenex can brand around all of the natural disasters that are occurring and require group emotional support. I’d suggest Kleenex be involved in relief efforts and make a marketing statement from it.

Could Kleenex also create box patterns suitable for different emotional states? Like make a box with runny noses, a box with flowers (for funeral homes) and box with moons (for the bed stand) and a box for the baby’s room (with children on it)?

I’m guessing that they’ve tried that. Might be a turn off for a guy who’s buying tissues for his nightstand to see a box of tissues with babies on it.

Images, however, are in the realm of water (and Pisces specifically) so Kleenex may want to consider a more visual than written marketing message.

The Kleenex message mentions comfort, which is also in the domain of water and the moon. Comfort in the message is a good thing and could possibly be emphasized as Neptune enters Pisces.

Tissues as Comfort

I agree with Kleenex that tissues provide comfort. The world definitely needs a lot of comfort these days as we experience tough economic and weather conditions.

Kleenex may do well to provide images of comfort on the boxes.