Ariel wanted to break its newest piece of news: that Ariel can make old clothes look like NEW. Just how NEW? This was exactly what we wanted consumers to see. And we knew we had to show it to them in a way that was really NEW. So we partnered with a Laundromat chain, got them to wash their customers’ old clothes with Ariel to make them look NEW, then transformed their Laundromats into NEW fashion boutique stores. From there on, we treated the clothes as if they were actually brand NEW clothes inside a fashion store.

We partnered with a Laundromat chain and got them to wash their customers’ old clothes with Ariel to make them look NEW. But we didn’t stop there. We turned their Laundromats into fashion boutique stores that appear to be selling NEW clothes. (Only, it’s just their customers’ old clothes washed with Ariel to look like NEW.) Outside, we displayed mannequins. Inside, we attached fashion tags to the clothes and hung them on display racks. And customers brought home their clothes in fashion bags. Online, we made their website look like a fashion boutique website that appeared to sell NEW clothes. We then created banner ads showing models wearing designer fashion garments that looked new, only selling at very low prices. Thinking it was the bargain of a lifetime, users clicked on the ad and were taken directly to the website where it was revealed that the garment cleaned NEW by Ariel, and the low price was just the cost of washing it at the Laundromat.

This effort was featured on TV, radio and on a nationwide newspaper. It was the newest thing on blogs, Facebook walls and Twitter feeds. Best of all, Ariel enjoyed a 16% increase in sales during the time of the campaign. And in grocery surveys, women specifically mentioned this effort as one of the reasons they were convinced that Ariel makes clothes look like NEW.