Cascades gets Tuff (and Fluff) to grow market share

Cascades has gone soft on its customers.

The paper products company this week unveiled its Cascades Fluff bathroom tissue and Cascades Tuff paper towels, which will gradually replace the current generation of Cascades products. The rollout is underway in its home province of Quebec.

The new product lines include Cascades Fluff Ultra, Cascades Fluff Strong and Cascades Fluff Enviro in the toilet tissue category, and Cascades Tuff Extreme and Cascades Tuff Enviro in the paper towel category. The company claims the products are the softest and strongest on the market.

Thierry Trudel, vice-president, marketing and communications at Cascades Tissue Group in Candiac, QC, said they represent a “total re-engineering” of Cascades products that took two years to complete. The process included everything from the manufacturing of the paper to the product embossing and packaging.





Trudel said Cascades had been “plateauing” in the paper products market for some time, and needed to innovate in order to grow the business. “We have ambitious goals for our market share moving forward,” he said.

Consumer research found while consumers appreciated Cascades’ eco-friendly stance (its products are made with 84% recycled materials), they also perceived they weren’t getting the same level of softness and absorption offered by rival brands.

“We’ve maintained the environmental approach, but now the products are meeting a higher standard of quality,” said Trudel of the re-engineered products.





Cascades also introduced two bunny mascots, Fluff and Tuff, who are appearing on packaging as well as point-of-sale materials. Both characters are also being brought to life in a new ad campaign from Montreal agency Sid Lee.

An April report from Euromonitor said leading brands in the tissue and hygiene category were following a “premiumization” trend, launching new products that have “ultra” properties such as ultra-absorbent or ultra-soft.

The report said the category would see “modest” growth through 2020, with product development opportunities limited because of aggressive price competition among retail channels vying for share.

Canada's combined tissue and hygiene market is valued at US$911.4 million. Cascades boast a 4.1% share of the paper towel market, and a 1.3% share of toilet paper.