Creative Elements Of The Clorox's Campaign

As a respected and established company that provides necessary cleaning products, I believe that this campaign was appropriate for Clorox. The creative elements were intriguing, but not over the top or out of context. Clorox stepped outside the box to produce clever content that resonated with and entertained the target public. I believe that Clorox’s campaign was appropriate because it was on brand and stayed true to the company’s mission that each of its products has a meaningful impact on consumers’ everyday lives. This specific campaign applied creative elements to remind consumers that Clorox can be used throughout all of life’s messy moments.

Clorox utilized its connection to cleaning up messes to develop a campaign that heavily leveraged

word play and funny aspects, as well celebrity connections and unexpected elements. The campaign followed the general theme of publicizing all things icky, messy and dirty. These creative devices were utilized to create the two sections of the campaign: the Clorox Ick-tionary and Bleach It Away.

The Clorox Ick-tionary:
The first step of the campaign was to get people talking about Clorox.

As a result, the Clorox Ick-tionary was created and it used word play to excite and interest consumers. To introduce and encourage consumers to use the new words from the Ick-tionary, the team used the following tactics:

• Employed comedians, bloggers and TV personalities as Ick-sperts to share their own icky words and messing experiences, which were labeled ick-speriences, to encourage consumers to visit icktionary.com and share their own ick-speriences.

• Created an ick “Back to School Night” viral video

• Conducted national interviews with Ick-Sperts Carol Leifer and Kyle Richards

• Brought the Clorox Ick-tionary to life through a mobile interactive glass

truck
• Hosted a twitter party with How to Be a Dad

Bleach It Away:
Next, the campaign focused on the Bleach It Away section by integrating funny aspects with the launch of “Bleachable Moments.” Clorox wanted to remind people how funny messes are after they’ve been cleaned up, so they got people to share the “Bleachable Moments” in their lives. Then they added an unexpected element by taking over Sin City, arguably the place most in need of bleaching away messy moments. The association between Clorox and Sin City wasn’t initially clear to me, but then I realized that the campaign’s target public is among the age group most likely to visit Las Vegas. Within the Sin City takeover, Clorox used a backdrop of interactive advertising and actress Angela Kinsey to get consumers talking about “Bleachable Moments.” Clorox also employed the following other tactics specifically for the target market:
• Partnered with Someecards, maker of humorous ecards that appeal to Newly Responsibles
• Employed a Promoted Tweets campaign to amplify visibility of “Bleachable Moments” and strategically reach the target audience, on- and off-line
• Worked with target-right online influencers to create interactive social promotions to engage consumers and encourage sharing

One aspect of this campaign that I found worked really well was the integration of content through both digital and traditional channels. From the research, it was obvious that the campaign would heavily rely on social media, but I am more impressed with the events and activities that were produced, especially the mobile interactive glass truck and the Vegas takeover. These two tactics brought the campaign to life.

Mobile Glass Truck:
With the help of TH Productions, the team developed the Ick-tionary glass truck that travelled across the country to educate the public on all things icky.

The truck parked in Bethesda, Nashville and San Francisco (TH Productions Facebook).. People in the area were encouraged to explore the truck by writing on the glass wall, searching through the Ick-tionary on iPads, posting on Instagram with the hashtag #icktionary for onsite prints (TH Productions Facebook). Outside the truck consumers could play games blow bubbles and interact with all things that the Ick-tionary and Clorox had to offer (TH Productions Facebook). This interactive program was a success because it product allowed Clorox to have physical presence while also connecting consumers to the active online campaigns. The program could have been better if the truck visited more cities across the country. That would have increased news write-ups and general conversation about Clorox’s campaign

nationwide.

Sin City Takeover:
The Clorox and Ketchum team devised a takeover of Las Vegas where messy situations naturally occur. The team sent The Office actress, writer and mom, Angela Kinsey to the Las Vegas Strip to help “bleach away” the notorious messes. Kinsey searched for consumers to share their messy moments that made them want to reach for the bleach, and those who participated got the chance to win $15,000 (PRNewswire). Consumers were encouraged to visit the Bleach It Away website and fill in the blanks of a messy Vegas moment for the chance to see it in the bright lights on the Vegas Strip. Rewards were given to the writers of fill in the blank statements that made it to the featured Vegas board. Additionally, everyone who submitted one moment received a coupon for $.50 off any bottle of Clorox Regular-Bleach (PRNewswire). This program effectively got Newly Responsibles to keep the messy conversation alive, and also encouraged them to purchase Clorox products with discounts and gift cards.

On the other hand, I do not think the partnership with Someecards was effective contrary to the engagement it generated. Although Someecards was at its peak in 2013, I do not believe that the partnership added any value to the campaign. The partnership “generated more than 1.3 million engagements and drove 35,000 unique users to BleachItAway.com,” but I believe with an adjustment it could have possibly doubled the engagement level (PRDaily). To make the partnership better, I would have recommended that Clorox let consumers generate their own ecards to send and share with their friends and family to remind them of messes that they may have caused or been a part of. With that new spin, I would have used the partnership to support the “see mess” portion of the campaign by increasing the communication about messes.
Majority of this campaign’s structure, procedures and processes were released publically; however, I could not find any information that detailed the campaign budget. I can only imagine that the campaign was expensive to conduct. The team needed to purchase equipment to create the glass truck and, pay for partnership with Someecards, and much more. Although, I do believe that the campaign used budget resources effectively because most of the social media usage was free or paid for itself through impressions and word-of-mouth marketing.