Clorox Cleans Up the Streets

I think this is such a great branding idea for a brand that’s hard to get attention for. Detergent and soap seems to be a hard animal to tackle in the advertising world. You have to consider so many other soaps and detergents all promising the same thing and since it is a constant consumer necessity you have to beat them all out. I think the biggest battle would be against generic brands at your local grocer. There’s a psychological factor in play though. People associate name brands as being stronger, but still a lot of us go for the cheaper brand because soap is soap, right? That’s why this brand marriage is such a tough fight, but a fight that can be one. By becoming interesting.

I love the path that some brands are taking. It’s a throw to true creativity. Put a brand behind real artists of the world and document it with a talented director/editor like Doug Pray in this case and that will create you connection. Support fine artists and real creativity and make the connection with the art that they do. Making something people want to watch sounds simple. And it can be. Make a brand connection using existing executed ideas/people/styles/mediums, like using an artist that “cleans.” 

Mountain Dew did it recently with there urban label campaign. Mountain Dew wanted to connect to an urban social demographic, so they hired seven artists to design a special series of labels. What does Clorox do? Clorox finds this guy, Paul “Moose” Curtis, who is a British artist that uses “reverse graffiti” as his medium. He got the idea from people writing there names with their fingers on dirty tunnel walls. The brilliant and very well done displays of stenciled compositions are wonderful to look at. Using a pressure washer to get his picture on any dirty surface he feels can be a cool canvas, he fills tunnels, streets, walls, and barricades with art that pulls you in a trance. I would call it an urban Chiaroscuro, because he erases away the darkness to get to the light to make his picture. 

It’s a cool art with a cool message: “The world is dirty. Cleanliness can be beautiful. Clorox helped show you this. Go to our website.”

Great job, Creatives

Credits:

Client: Clorox Green Works 
Agency: DDB, San Francisco 
Chief Creative Officer: Lisa Bennett 
Director of Production: Frank Brooks 
Group Creative Director: Dustin Smith 
Art Director: Natalie Chambers 
Copywriter: Jon Lancaric 
Agency Producer: Mia Lischer, Frank Brooks 
Interactive Producer: Alli Taylor 
Web Designer: Matthieu Brajot, John Gordon 
Production Company: The Oil Factory 
Director/Editor: Doug Pray 
Line Producer: Peter Murray 
Music: Garron Chang

Advertisement