The film is a day in the life of Ash, cast alongside her real family and friends, and the visceral importance of her hoodie. Everything in the film is based on lived experience.

Ash’s morning routine is disturbed by her family running late. She stims with her hoodie to calm herself. This volatility continues through the school day. We see her excel at maths, but when someone accidentally brushes against her in the corridor, it sends her autism into overdrive and she retreats to the sensory room.

Once home, she gets paint on her beloved hoodie and asks dad to wash it. The tender way he folds it and places it on the banister speaks volumes.

Ash's sister's patience snaps when a therapeutic drum solo interrupts her favourite programme. She takes her sister’s hoodie. This sends Ash into shutdown, but once reunited she attends school with her close friends.

Vanish penetration has been in decline since 2018 (-102bps). The brand is losing relevance and wallet share - as a premium priced additive - as most consumers (70%) still see the brand as a straightforward stain remover only. But in 2021 Vanish reformulated to offer multiple garment care benefits, stain and odour removal, hygienically cleans and colour protection, however awareness of this remains low (46%). Furthermore, Vanish is fighting for relevance as it is a discretionary product consumers need to buy on top of detergents, many of which were claiming many of the same benefits.

In a category saturated by performance messaging, we needed to move beyond the purely functional and connect with our consumers. We needed a fresh perspective in order to shift perceptions of our product proposition and to drive relevance and usage. We aimed to achieve this via our purpose-led proposition ‘making clothes live longer’.

Having made the brand connection to support the autistic community, we listened to the community and learnt the eye-opening truth that girls are three times less likely to be diagnosed than boys due to outdated misconceptions. But without a confirmed diagnosis, autistic people and their families can't receive the support they need. Although every autistic person is different, women and girls can be better at ‘masking’ their autism.

The majority of mainstream depictions of autism - include ‘Rain Man’, ‘Atypical’, ‘X + Y’ and ‘I Used To Be Famous’, all of which feature autistic men. Yet, autistic girls and women still remain largely overlooked in an already underrepresented community. 98% of autistic people believe their lives would improve through better representation and understanding Our campaign aimed to help improve women, girl's and non-binary visibility by celebrating their voices and providing support.

We were overwhelmed by the positive response:

In total, we have secured 66x pieces of coverage and a reach of 3.8b

+60 million impressions on Twitter of 'Vanish' and 'autism' of which 88% were positive

Viral on TikTok with video receiving +3.6 million views

+500 followers on Ambitious about Autism Instagram

+190% in new visitors on Ambitious about Autism's website since launch

+2,000% increase in engagement on Vanish landing page (vs previous period based on average daily visit numbers).

Hero film results:

82% gave the ad a 5 or 4 star rating.

79% feel more informed about the lived experience of autism since watching our ad.

53% say they will do more research into how Vanish is supporting this cause after watching the ad.

(Channel 4 Mirror On The Industry Report: 4Youth network)