I’d worked on P&G extensively before – devising, writing and rolling out the global Pampers campaign ‘Learning From Babies’ across all markets, and we’d done Ariel too at Saatchis, but this was Horse’s Mouth’s first venture for Geneva – a new product launch too. The perception in Germany was that Perwoll is the brand specialist for washing black or dark laundry, our job was to get consumers to consider and trust the laundry expert challengers – Ariel & Lenor. The business objective was to get 100% of dark wash detergent users to try at least one of our brand’s black offerings.

Research showed that people were concerned that washing dark clothes causes them to fade and bobble so they were using artificial means such as perfumes to keep them ‘fresh’ for longer. Ariel & Lenor Coco variants were specially formulated to remove the black pills and so keep blacks looking blacker for longer – with no fabric dye.

The idea we settled on for the launch was ‘Fear Of The Dark Wash’, aiming to dramatise the sense of fear and panic that consumers hold towards washing their blacks. 

Specifically, the execution for Ariel was ‘Perfume Launderette’. This showed an adolescent boy using a body spray to make his dirty black t-shirt wearable for longer. We featured a specially made demo sequence demonstrating the way black pills were removed – the colour-memory technology, and the multisensoriality was delivered in his performance.

For Lenor we developed a range of scripts in the existing ‘Fairy Tales’ campaign, the favourite of which was ‘Dracula’. In this idea we see Count Dracula getting dressed in his black outfit and going out at night. His attempts at scaring the locals are thwarted by the fact that his black clothes have faded and he’s not as invisible as he hopes – a village girl noting that she can see him hiding. His misery is helped when she offers him a pack of Lenor Coco to help him get his mojo back.

As well as scripts and storyboards, we also made a Q&R of ‘Perfume Launderette’ – all shot and edited and finished during lock-down in the UK, plus a fully animated demo. We also developed for both routes a range of 360 activation ideas such as some OOH digital 6 sheets, a pop up laundry at festivals for goths to wash their black clothes, an instagram filter, some thoughts on UGC to demonstrate users ‘fear of the dark wash’, PR ideas about ‘what makes your black clothes so stinky’ and in-store ideas across the shopper journey.

After we’d developed the strategy, the creative ideas and executions and shot and finished the Q&R we handed the work over to the regional agency to finish up.