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). As a premium priced additive, the brand is losing relevance and wallet share, most consumers (70%) still see the brand as a straightforward stain remover only. In fact, in 2021 Vanish reformulated to offer multiple garment care benefits, however awareness of this remains low (46%). Furthermore, as a discretionary laundry additive, Vanish is fighting for relevance against detergents which are increasingly 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 of ‘making clothes live longer’.

Alongside director Tom Hooper, we cast our net wide, putting the brief out via casting agents, Ambitious about Autism's youth network, and Reckitt's network.

From the first self-tapes shared by Kharmel Cochran, we saw something in Ash. Recalls confirmed our suspicions that she was it. A magnetic and talented 15-year-old with a visceral relationship with her hoodie. She’s an extraordinary actress who commands the camera in every frame, despite never being behind it before. Going through the rushes in the edit she was incapable of being false or untruthful.

She could act episodes of great distress without getting upset by representing it. This allowed us to portray stimming and shutdowns on screen. While also showcasing the friendship and humour of our protagonist.

We cast her family and friends alongside her to give an honest glimpse into their life. Together we knew they would make a fascinating subject for this film.

Within a day of the film’s launch, it went viral on TikTok racking up 4.5 million views and counting.

There was an overwhelmingly positive response both from autistic people and their networks as well as the general public on social media, with headlines such as "Channel 4's Vanish autism awareness advert has left viewers in tears as it gets rave reviews" (Daily Record).

A broad range of conversations started to emerge, with many writing in-depth personal accounts of their own experiences, on topics including diagnosis, stimming, family dynamics, school uniform and autism accommodation.

The film was shared across closed autism support groups across Facebook, Mumsnet and has started to be adopted into workplaces and schools, the latter requesting permission to share in some instances. It was also shared by Policy makers such as MP Doug Beattie, political journalists such as Jon Snow and Suzanne Breen and mainstream celebrities.