Campaign Trail is our analysis of some of the best new creative efforts from the marketing world. View past columns in the archives here.
For years, personal care brands marketed to women have worked to break down advertising taboos around issues like menstruation and body hair. Now, a flushable wipe brand is using the same approach to toilet talk in a category that has cleaned up with dudes.
The Honest Company recently launched a campaign, “It’s Time to Get Honest,” in support of its flushable wipe products, which have recently expanded distribution nationwide. The effort, created by agency Zambezi, includes social, out-of-home, connected TV, influencer partnership and a physical newspaper.
“Honest Flushable Wipes were growing fast and expanding into new retail doors, giving us a genuine chance to mainstream the flushable wipes category for women in particular — bringing habitual toilet paper users into the category for the first time,” said Brenna Israel Mast, senior vice president of integrated marketing communications at The Honest Company, in emailed comments. “More than ever before, women are openly talking about their bodies and their everyday experiences and are looking to brands that reflect this.”
A bold and breezy 30-second hero spot features a quick cut montage of women in the bathroom, some with their underwear below their knees, with a series of images that serve as visual double entendres: a meowing kitten, a prairie dog, a glass of red wine and a tumbleweed. “Ladies, it’s time to get honest down there,” says a woman in voiceover, before overlaid text reads “Poop!,” “Periods!” and “Discharge is normal.”
The newspaper called, naturally, The Toilet Paper — claims that “the only toilet paper you should be using is the one you’re reading.” The 16-page broadsheet features articles and listicles with headlines including “Real Trauma Dumps,” “The Panty Horoscope: your 'Down There' Destiny” and “Ranking Cinema's Most (and Least) Relatable Bathroom Breaks.” The Toilet Paper was available at select locations of Sugared + Bronzed as part of a collaboration with the beauty salon chain.
“When you think about the flushables category, there's definitely a white space in there to really have some more brands be talking specifically to women, and I think Honest is a perfect brand to have those authentic conversations with consumers,” said Jean Freeman, principal and CEO at Zambezi.
“It’s Time to Get Honest” also includes influencer partnerships with Hannah Berner of Giggly Squad, Kat Stickler, Tia Mowry, Whitney Leavitt and Karla Burton.
“Giving creative points of view on an influencer standpoint… is one of the areas where you need multiple touchpoints and insight, because influencers are their own media channels, to a degree,” said Freeman, echoing IAB research that has described creators as a “core media channel.”
Overall, “It’s Time to Get Honest” looks to break down a frontier of advertising taboos, normalize women’s bathroom realities and move the adult wipes category beyond the male gaze. The effort is informed by a survey by Talker Research commissioned for the brand that found 42% of women talk about what goes on in the bathroom weekly, with many openly discussing things like menstrual symptoms (59%), love life struggles (50%) and family drama (49%).
“Femininity is wrapped up in modesty to a degree, and culture assumes it's not ladylike to actually talk about bathroom habits,” Freeman said. “When you confront the most embarrassing topics out loud, you shatter the taboo around them.”
The creative of the 30-second CTV ad and The Toilet Paper was crafted in close collaboration between Honest and Zambezi, with a tone that is frank and provocative without being crass.
“We wanted to be very authentic and almost intimate. It's almost like it's a handwritten note from a friend to a friend,” Freeman said. “Have you ever seen the word ‘discharge’ in an ad before? We were trying to have honest conversations that haven't really been out there yet.”
