Tasked with creating an awareness campaign for brand’s new Fingerprint Resistant Stainless Steel kitchen appliances, but competing with the controversial 2016 Presidential election, the creative team devised a creative strategy that resonated for both: If you’re tired of smears, Maytag is your hero.

Maytag took a stand to “help keep things clean in 2016” with an unexpected social media twist: a Chrome desktop social media plug-in that helped block nasty political posts and replace them with amusing satirical content. The brand’s simple product attribute — fingerprint-resistant performance — now contained a larger message that everyone could agree on.

Knowing the campaign’s risks, we drafted a robust issues/crisis plan with scenario and response executions, and trained spokespeople to maintain the brand’s non-partisan stance and satirical objective.

The social team created humorous social media responses for the “No Smear” plug-in, supported by “ways to survive the election” and other messaging emphasizing the Maytag promise to “keep it clean” amidst the vitriolic political landscape.

We launched “No Smear” with an AdAge exclusive, spurring more outlets to report on the newsworthy campaign. A media day with celebrity spokesperson and Saturday Night Live veteran Abby Elliott broadened our reach to leading entertainment media and introduced the Maytag message to outlets that typically don’t cover household appliances.

Partnering with renowned political scientist Dr. Arthur Lupia to develop keywords used in the plug-in’s algorithm, we identified and targeted nasty political posts. Dr. Lupia helped secure hard-news placements and conducted a satellite media tour.

Media Outputs

“No Smear 2016” secured on-message product coverage in national media channels that generally don’t cover appliances: 318 media placements, which generated 122 million weekly impressions.

We penetrated multiple media verticals with appliance messages, including political media such as SiriusXM’s POTUS: Press Pool and NBC News Radio; trade publications such as Advertising Age, Digital Trends and PRWeek; and lifestyle and entertainment media such as Vice, Cheddar TV, Hollywood Life, the Jenny McCarthy Show, and Wake Up with Taylor on Sirius XM.

An impressive 78% of our earned coverage included at least one product mention of the new Maytag Fingerprint Resistant Stainless Steel line.

Ninety-six percent of coverage was positive in tone, a result we had carefully planned and trained for, given the pitfalls of entering the political arena.

Consumer and Business Outcomes

The day that our press release and AdAge exclusive launched, page views on the Maytag product landing page jumped 336%, and spiked to 380% after our media day. Most importantly, sales for Maytag increased 40% during the campaign, aiding the brand’s one percent boost in preference in 2016.

An important outcome for PR was the internal win at Whirlpool Corporation. Politics, particularly during this contentious American election season, are a controversial topic that consumer brands tend to avoid. Yet, we proved that with a well-designed earned media program built around culturally relevant creative, we could leverage the election climate in a reasonable and relatable way to directly communicate a commercial product benefit of Whirlpool’s new appliance line.