This Is Your Brain On Clean: When Clorox Met Neurotech

(MENAFN- PRovoke) The early days of the Covid pandemic saw consumers focusing on cleanliness like never before. Clorox in particular experienced a 500% increase in demand, according to chairman and CEO Benno Dorer, as people sought out bleach and disinfectants products to protect against the virus.

But as the pandemic ended, Clorox recognized that its germ-fighting qualities were no longer as relevant to consumers, and it needed to find a new brand message-one that would go beyond functionality to create emotional relevance,

Says Rita Gorenberg, senior director of marketing and brand experience at Clorox,“Coming out of the pandemic, what we found was people were associating us purely with disinfection. We knew that looking ahead we needed to reframe consumers' mindsets to think about Clorox standing for clean, the clean that you need every day in your life to help you feel good.”

The company and its public relations agency Ketchum had been monitoring social media discussions around cleaning and cleanliness.“We were seeing an increase in clean talk,” says Gorenberg.“People were spending hours watching before and after video of cleaning, and there was more and more discussion about the oddly satisfying feeling of clean. So that was our initial insight.”

That insight formed the basis of a new“Clean is Good” platform, but the team recognized that not everyone would immediately associate the act of cleaning-which many people, after all, see as a chore-with pleasure. To make the case credible, they would need not just anecdotal evidence but objective proof.

An online survey from Clorox found that one in five Americans (21%) said they clean all the time to improve their mood. But to ground the message in science, the company teamed up with neurotech leader Emotiv to conduct a series of neuroscience experiments. Using EEG (electroencephalography) technology, the company measured the emotional impact of cleaning and compared it to more traditional mood-enhancing activities: getting a manicure, listening to music, and even playing with puppies.

Emotiv“helped us build out the actual protocol and study, so it was all rooted in actual neurological science, and so we created essentially stations where people would go and do the non-cleaning action, the sort of moments of joy that they do throughout their day. And then we would have them go to another station, and they would do cleaning activities, and then we were able to compare what's going on in their brain during both of those to get essentially a score.”

Emotiv used EEG to measure brain activity reflecting positive emotions, enthusiasm and approach motivation (neurotech speak for good feelings). Said Emotiv senior research scientist Dr. Nik Williams, "Using EEG, we got a glimpse into what the brain is doing while a participant took part in different activities, from wiping up coffee rings on the kitchen counter to relaxing in a massage chair.

“From there, we measured the differences in activation between the two sides of the brain, which gives us an indication of how much an individual enjoyed an activity."

The experiments found that:

For 43% of participants, cleaning the toilet felt better than listening to their favorite song. cleaning away gunk and grime from the sink felt as good as having a cup of coffee or another favorite beverage. The act of wiping the kitchen counter felt 6% better than getting a massage. Wiping the kitchen counter and scrubbing a sink produced a positive response similar to watching a funny video or getting a manicure. More than a third of participants felt better cleaning the toilet than petting a puppy.

Says Gorenberg,“If you think about all the things that you do in your everyday life to bring these little moments of joy, I don't know that before this study a huge amount of people would automatically say cleaning was one of them, but we set out to prove that cleaning does make you feel good.”

In fact, the experiments surprised even Gorenberg herself.“There was one gentleman who went through the experiment with us, and I am an avid dog lover, so I thought nothing's going to beat puppies. But for him, the satisfaction of cleaning a toilet actually scored higher than playing with puppies, and my mind was blown by that one. I believe in clean, but that one really surprised me.”

To turn science into storytelling, Clorox and Ketchum launched a multi-phase campaign amplifying the results pf the study through earned media and social engagement.

First the company initiated a playful debate across Bravo, Peacock and various social channels. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star and self-proclaimed cleaning enthusiast Lisa Barlow starred in custom content weighing whether cleaning could feel as good as her glam routine.

The team also tapped cleaning and lifestyle creators Vanesa Amaro, Terrence Bradshaw and Uly & Ernesto, who asked their followers whether they thought cleaning felt as good as a massage or their morning coffee?

A New York media event provided a live demonstration of the neuroscience experiment among nearly 40 attendees. Attendees from CNN Underscored, Today, Real Simple and New York Post participated in feel-good activities like getting a manicure and listening to their favorite song in a silent disco, while also having their brainwaves read by Emotiv's EEG technology.

And Clorox VP of marketing and innovation Tad Kittredge spoke with marketing trades to explain the emotional narrative behind the“Clean Feels Good” platform.

Finally, the team partnered with Snapchat to develop an engaging augmented reality lens inviting users to share what makes them feel good-bringing the campaign into their everyday digital lives.

Says Gorenberg,“This program was such a wonderful example of all of our partners and teams coming together to rally around a single big idea, which is where we see most of our campaign success coming, when our ecosystem is connected to one big, very sticky idea.”

A post-campaign brand lift study showed that Clorox not only maintained its leadership in the cleaning category; it elevated it, ranking among the top brands for trust and favorability, outperforming competitors across key emotional metrics.

Most notably, those who saw the campaign were 10% more likely to clean more often, driven by the newfound understanding that cleaning can actually feel good.

Says Gorenberg,“We wanted to resonate with people, but more than anything we wanted to start a dialog, and we wanted people to actually engage on social as well as just in real life around this debate and these moments where cleaning makes people feel good. And so to see our ability to spark a conversation, and spark a debate in a category that many people don't talk about, or even think about that much, that was an indication of what the team accomplished here.”

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