Girls Poop Too

The campaign for Poo-Pourri in 2013 appealed to their audience with the themes of being real, relatable, and humorous. It seems eye-opening because toilet talk is often considered taboo and to have a pretty woman advertising for a toilet perfume is unheard of.

From the moment the actress opens the bathroom stall with the flush sound in the background and states “You would not believe the motherload I just dropped”, the audience was hooked. We craved more of the video, wondering what this beautiful, respectable looking young lady is doing talking about her poop.

Google defines being creative as “relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.” Advertisements that are wild and considered “out there” is exactly what I think of when I hear the words creative.

If you were able to make people create a fuss over a commercial ad that you sent out for your product, you must have been unique. Creativity is something formed through being unique and having at least one aspect to draw people in. You need to think out of the normal advertisements box and ask yourself, “If I was watching a commercial, what would I not expect to happen, ect.”

It’s the element of surprise and suspense that will continue to draw your audience long enough to hear about the product’s purpose. This advertisement style teaches us that being relatable in the public’s eyes and being able to intrigue your audience’s attention for even a few seconds with a hook can ultimately help build up your campaign message and rack up your product revenue.

The goal of the company was to try and turn a poo product into a dinner-table conversation all across America. They worked with the Harmon Brothers to produce their first video in their campaign that ran from August 2013 to January 2014. The video went viral with over 50 million views and helped boost web traffic by 13,000%.

The increase in web traffic was due to Poo Pourri selling out their inventory with four million dollars worth of backorders for weeks. The video was created by the company called the Harmon Brothers, a marketing company that helps build campaigns for products. The company helped the brand produce the viral video and more than doubled their annual revenue. Poo-Pourri continued to work with the Harmon Brothers to make more content for their consumers and to create brand loyalty with the PR campaign #GirlsPoopToo.

These videos recall the accounts and experiences from a diverse group of women who have had toilet problems, while not once mentioning the product by mouth. Audiences are easily entertained by the women recalling their bathroom horror stories on camera. The company uses these campaigns to be relatable and humorous with their audience and in turn it helps promote the product brand. They are incredibly engaging with their audience and definitely have an online presence to help promote themselves.

The first video that went viral was an advertisement and it classifies as a classic one due to it’s informative nature, persuasion tactics, and obvious identification of the product. The advertisement was so successful that the video series that came after ,#Girls Poop Too, doesn’t even directly try to tell you to purchase the Poo Pourri Product. They are just trying to build a long term relationship with their audience and hope that they will begin to create brand loyalty.

The relationship a person has between their brand and how their message makes them feel can be the determining factor on if a consumer buys your product or the competitions. This is why the element of surprise can be a defining factor in advertising. It has the power to make or break you, but the risk can definitely be rewarding as you can see with the Poo-Pourri brand.

You can purchase the product here on amazon.

Works Cited:

Periodic Table: Element Advertisements. (2016, February 03). Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/lesson-plans/periodic-table-element-advertisements

The marketers behind Squatty Potty, Poo~Pourri, and Orabrush. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://harmonbrothers.com/home

A business that doesn't stink: Solving poo odor. (2016, January 26). Retrieved from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/business-doesnt-stink-solving-poo-131133393.html

Google. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/google