How do we make a 150 year old product relevant to a new generation? Clorox Bleach is iconic. Millennials aren’t buying bleach; in fact they're scared of it.
However, when they learn that bleach is more than the nuclear option – that it has simple everyday uses, even keeping flowers fresh longer – everything changes.
So we did the not-so-obvious thing: we created a music video... about bleach.
We partnered with Grammy award-winning producers to craft a track so karaoke-worthy, that listeners wouldn't care it was an ad demonstrating practical uses for bleach.
The music video features a young couple using bizarre contraptions to demonstrate surprising uses for bleach; who knew that bleach could extend the life of jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween?
The karaoke-worthy lyrics are set to cutting-edge contemporary music, using slightly auto-tuned vocals and a catchy synth line - to create a song that would fit on today's radio.
The couple sings provocative lyrics, taking the brand where it hadn't been before - intentionally omitting "Clorox" from the song to make it feel like entertainment.
The lyric, "And can cover up suspicious foul play" is a nod to the profuse use of bleach in crime genre television and film.
The lyric, "And can clean your sheets before a blacklight swab" is a cheeky nod to an iconic early 2000s dating show, Room Raiders, where contestants used a blacklight on the beds of prospective suitors.
We also include some lyrics in Spanish, without English translation - specifically for our Hispanic consumers.
And when they finally introduce the jug at the end, it reads almost as the punchline.
With over 9.9 million views, 5K + likes on YouTube, fans repeatedly ask to listen to the song on Spotify. In other words, "it's a bop".
The average view time for an ad on YouTube is 7 seconds. Our average viewing was a record 54 seconds of a 60 second video.
As a result our clients decided to show our music video in cinemas to reported repeated applause.