BAND-AID® Brand Turns 100 This Year: Senior Director Dawn Hampton with Exclusive Updates
We all have used a BAND-AID® Brand product at some point in our lives. Without them, we wouldn’t have an easy way to get through the day with an injury. It goes without saying; the BAND-AID® Brand is a leader in making innovative products and a lasting impact as well. The BAND-AID® Brand has been a trusted brand for over a century and is taking its place in the world as one of America’s oldest companies. Alongside their many innovations, the BAND-AID® Brand’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, has spearheaded the women’s movement since its conception as well as diversity in the workplace and has recently released some exciting milestones.
BAND-AID® Brand has been a trusted brand for over a century. How has BAND-AID® Brand achieved this amazing milestone?
What I love about this brand is that at the heart of it all, it has been driven by consumer needs even from its humble beginnings. Earle Dickson, at Johnson & Johnson, invented the first adhesive bandage to help his wife, who was prone to kitchen accidents, cutting or burning her fingers during meal preparation. There were very few options back then, you either leave the cut unbandaged, which slows healing and risks infection, or you struggle one-handed to try to tie a strip of gauze around your finger to create a bulky makeshift bandage. So, he had an idea: he took two Johnson & Johnson products — surgical adhesive tape and gauze — and invented the first ready-made adhesive bandage his wife could apply herself.
BAND-AID® Brand is truly a staple in so many households, including my own. No matter where you live, you’ve likely used a BAND-AID® Brand adhesive bandage before, and not many other products on the market can match that kind of universal appeal and resonance. It’s also a product that is a genuine catalyst for moments of care; whether a parent puts a BAND-AID® bandage on their child after falling off of their bike, or were scraped while playing hopscotch, consumers are looking for products that can have those meaningful connections, so I think that’s another reason they’ve been able to stick around for as long as they have.
How has Johnson & Johnson, BAND-AID® Brand parent company, helped empower women?
We’re proud to partner with organizations and implement programs to champion the young global leaders of tomorrow. One of the ways Johnson and Johnson is committed to supporting women is through our program Re-Ignite, a paid program offered by Johnson & Johnson for professionals in science, technology, engineering, math, manufacturing, and design (STEM2D) who’ve been out of their field for at least two or more years and want to return to that line of work. People who do these “returnships” with the company receive skills training and support from mentors throughout Johnson & Johnson for 16 weeks or longer, depending on their location — and can be considered for a full-time role at the company. It’s truly remarkable the types of connections that are being made here!
Another program that is important for us, for years, is that Johnson & Johnson has helped give expectant women living in underserved communities access to vital health information about pregnancy, labor, and infant care through mobile messaging programs as mMitra in India and MomConnect in South Africa. mMitra targets low-income women in urban Indian communities, where rates of death from pregnancy complications and early childhood diseases are high. Through mMitra, women receive voice calls twice a week, in their chosen language, that provide preventative care information tailored to their stage of pregnancy or the developmental stage of their child. To date, the program has reached more than 1 million mothers in India.
This year BAND-AID® Brand had announced bandages that will match more skin types. What have been the responses?
At our core, BAND-AID® Brand always strives to be inclusive and is committed to driving inclusivity within the wound care category. We want all our consumers to see themselves in our brand and recognize the importance of having a variety of skin tones to reflect diverse voices and communities and look forward to launching our new brown and black skin tone bandages in early 2021.
How has BAND-AID® Brand handled the COVID-19 outbreak?
Our family of brands is built for times like these and are committed to supporting those on the front lines of this global pandemic. In January, Johnson & Johnson announced our multipronged response to the COVID-19 outbreak that includes committing $50 million in support of healthcare workers on the very front lines of the crisis around the world.
Can you tell us about the BAND-AID® Brand partnership with the global humanitarian leader and creator of the original care package, CARE, to deliver Care Packages to frontline workers and caregivers impacted by the global pandemic?
We are proud to be working with CARE to support frontline workers, especially in a year where these caregivers have given so much of themselves to so many. The BAND-AID® Brand is making a $100,000 donation to CARE and has also unveiled a variety of modern-day “CARE Packages” to donate, delivering items requested by caregivers on the front lines, including meals, PPE, and critical healthcare and delivery services. In the span of 100 days, consumers can visit http://carepackage.org/band-aidbrand to send custom CARE Packages at varying levels. You can thank a caregiver by sending a care relief package to deliver critical supplies to those in crisis or provide BAND-AID® and CARE care packages for the world’s most vulnerable caregivers.
BAND-AID® Brand is always expanding. What can we look forward to from Band-Aid?
We are excited to continue to innovate the category and deliver on the needs of our consumers.
