I love it when traditonal, old-school advertising works. It sparks joy. Yes, I’m strange in a Don Draper 1950s way.
With everyone bashing traditional thirty-second commercials, sometimes the right message can drown out the noise.
Cascade, P&G’s dishwasher cleaning pods, has been running a campaign to communicate a straightforward idea. Their advertising teaches a smart, marketing lesson.
When you run your dishwasher, you use less water than when you wash dishes by hand.
I didn’t know this fact until now.
Cascade brand urges consumers to run their dishwasher nightly versus waiting until you have a more massive load of dirty dishes. This counterintuitive fact is squeaky clean and, after a little research, factually accurate. An Energy Star -certified dishwasher uses half as much water as older ones from the ’90s.
Moreover, a dishwasher uses about four gallons of water per cycle, while handwashing dishes for fifteen seconds uses half a gallon of water. Two minutes of handwashing dishes use four gallons of water.
Cascade wants you to run your dishwasher nightly, thus using more of their product.
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. star in these “Do It Every Night” ads with the obvious dual meaning to get consumers to change their habits. You can see the ad here.
The ads work. I changed my habit.
Find a Fact and Shine A Light
Is there something about your product or service that everyone inside the company knows, but you aren’t sharing?
When I worked in the synthetic wine cork world, I once sat in a meeting where I learned that our plastic cork was more than 60% air. This fact became part of how we started to shift perceptions about our plastic product by promoting 60% oxygen. Plastic is bad; oxygen is good. A truthful statement that changed how people viewed our cork.
Often, marketing’s role is to uncover the hidden gems of truth that can shift perception and bust a myth.
I thought that washing dishes by hand saved water. Now, I’m drowning in a cascade of facts.
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Need help uncovering some helpful truths about your brand?
I can help. You can set up a time chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Our initial conver?sation is free. You talk, I listen. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com or call me. 919 720 0995. Visit my website at www.themarketingsage.com. Let’s explore working together today.
Photo: Screengrab from TV of P&G’s Cascade advertisement
