Background
Cottonelle partnered with FCB to create a distinctive, category-defining new platform for the brand. Cottonelle came to us to make sure the campaign would resonate.
THE CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Insight: The presence of doubt means an absence of confidence.
Product Truth: The Cottonelle complete clean regimen removes residue & insecurities.
Idea Statement: When you “go,” leave everything uncomfortable behind so you can… COME CLEAN.
THE ASK
Understand what “Come Clean” means to people and identify how it’s working across the campaign executions.
Provide creative execution principles that align with our audience’s mental frames around “Come Clean.”
research method
ZMET in-depth interviews designed to get at people’s unconscious mental frames around “clean” and explore their reactions to initial creative executions.
findings
Feeling clean is more than being physically clean. Clean and dirty are emotional states with emotional signals. Not only did all campaign executions need to show cues of physical cleanliness, they had to feel emotionally clean.
Emotional cleanliness feels light, uplifting, and promising — like nothing in life is holding you back. On the contrary, feeling dirty feels stuck and heavy, like problems that stay on a repeat loop.
The key unlock: we feel dirty when things go unresolved. We crave resolution to feel emotionally light because the human brain seeks cognitive closure, the psychological need to resolve uncertainty. When we experience resolution, we feel complete — we feel clean.
All creative needed to end on a light, resolved note in order to feel “clean.”
strategic optimizations
Keep it Clean
Cue Accomplishment
Create feelings of Resolution
Cue Uplifting
FINAL CREATIVE