2015 Bronze Anvil Winner Highlight: Clorox Ick Awards Help The Brand Freshen Up Its Image
A household staple for mostly older generations, many of today’s parents don’t know that the brand also makes products to help them spend less time cleaning and more time, well, doing anything else.
Modern parents love social media to share tales of messes kids of all ages create, from diapers to science projects. For example:
- 70% of modern moms visit social media sites weekly; one-third visited several times daily.
- According to Forrester Technographics, one in three relies heavily on “expert” recommendations from family and friends
Consumers also gather information, many relying heavily on social postings by influencers within their network to discover new things:
- 48% think social media posts by others in their networks are a good way to discover new products and brands, according to Wildfire Interactive.
- 59% trust online reviews (BrightLocal).
To connect with modern parents, Clorox needed to use social media channels and brand messaging that would resonate—and result in appealing, shareable branded content. This insight inspired Ketchum to create the Clorox Ick Awards, a consumer co-creation and social media event.
The central component of the agency’s campaign was to recruit Rachel Dratch, of Saturday Night Live and Second City fame, to improvise a live, four-hour awards show on Twitter, inviting parents to call the shots in real time. Ketchum targeted time-deprived moms and dads, ages 25 to 40, who may not know that Clorox makes a full line of products to match the best – and worst – messes. Parents tweeted their messes as nominees for categories like #MysteriousMess and #EpicMess, then voted for their favorite nominee videos.
Ketchum also recruited popular dad bloggers Charlie and Andy from @HowtoBeaDad to host the Ick Awards on Twitter because of their funny, satiric take on what it means to be a modern dad and their influential network of followers.
The Sway Group blogger network promoted the Ick Awards and encouraged participation via blog and social media posts. Clorox partnered with other humorous social media influencers to co-host segments of the Twitter Party and sustain participation over the four-hour period.
Ketchum leveraged nationwide tweets from modern parents before, during and after the Ick Awards to drive awareness and engagement with the content.
The Awards show also had Second City performers to do “red carpet” interviews, musical numbers, icky re-enactments and over-the-top awards acceptance speeches. Rachel did traditional media interviews, and social media influencers hyped the awards online. Ketchum created golden #Ickies statues (representing core Clorox products) to award “winners.”
The result? The Ick Awards cleaned up. They proved a huge success in building brand awareness and affinity for Clorox among socially influential parents, and producing top-tier media placements, breakthrough Twitter impressions for Clorox on cleaning, and hilarious branded content. The campaign and awards show:
- Engaged 1,434 unique Twitter followers in the Clorox Ick Awards conversation.
- Generated 142 million+ Twitter impressions and 16,500 uses of #Ickies, jumping to a Twitter trending topic, along with category hashtags #MysteriousMess, #SuperParentMess, #EpicMess and #BestDateMess.
- 30% of Clorox mentions related to the campaign included ick-related terms; 10% increase in posts mentioning Clorox products pre- vs. post-campaign.
Ketchum also branded Clorox in resulting social conversations/media and produced relevant, shareable content:
- Secured 90 stories and 1,159 matte release placements (19.6 million media impressions). 96.9% included Clorox’s “laugh through the mess” messaging. 95.3% included Clorox product messaging.
- Increased Clorox brand conversation volume online by 63% during the campaign’s execution; generated more than 32% of conversation online compared to competitors.
- Co-created 43 Clorox Ick Awards videos with consumers
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