Kimberly-Clark Professional extended its KleenGuard* brand earlier this spring by launching a new line of protective eyewear.

Why get into the already competitive eyewear segment of the PPE market?

“It’s part of our head-to-toe innovation strategy,” Randy Kates, general manager of the K-C Professional Safety Business, told For Distributors Only. “Branding drives purchasing decisions, and we are a global brand leader in limited-use high quality personal protective equipment.”

The roll-out includes 20 new KleenGuard brand eye protection products, expanding the brand’s selection of head-to-toe protective gear.

“We won’t market anything without innovative research,” said Kates. “We feel we have a unique bundle of products under KleenGuard, which we plan to extend further.”

New eyewear products range from standard visitor’s glasses to stylish frames with an emphasis on comfort and design. As with other KleenGuard brands, the eyewear offers a simple “Alpha Numeric” product selection formula, with the alphabet letters identifying the type of product and the number indicating the type and level of features.

The brand bundle
The KleenGuard brand bundle of products now includes eyewear, latex-coated gloves, nitrile cut-resistant gloves, chemical spray protection apparel, nitrile chemical-resistant gloves and neoprene/latex chemical-resistant gloves.

“We are a safety solution provider,” said Kates. For K-C’s eyewear launch, hundreds of safety professionals were surveyed about eyewear needs, and K-C learned the importance of product selection without the challenges of confusion in the selection process.

“Our strategy is to introduce a number of SKUs to cover 75 percent of the eye protection market,” said Kates. And K-C is promoting comfort features, such as cushioned brows, gel nosepieces, flexible temples, even mirrored lenses to help safety pros gain better PPE compliance with workers.

“Remember, many workers still don’t wear what they should,” said Kates, citing statistics indicating 50-60 percent of accidents involve people not wearing the proper PPE.

K-C’s Professional Safety Business is “aggressively pursuing” research into the development of other limited-use types of PPE for the industrial market, said Kates. These products are not immediately disposable, but have a 45-60 day lifecycle.

K-C is also making a strong investment in getting its story of KleenGuard products for worker wellness out to core customers, said Kates. End-users can download tools and information including user guides and articles from www.kc-safety.com/kn.

Kimberly-Clark Professional, located in Roswell, Ga., is one of four K-C business segments.

KleenGuard* is a trademark of Kimberly-Clark Worldwide Inc.