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 enlisted an incredible team to work on the film at every stage of production that was equally inspired to bring this vision to life and to create as big an impact as possible for our cause.

Russell Icke from Whitehouse Post masterfully edited our film. The dialogue of the entire film was completely unscripted and improvised from the family's real experiences. Russell helped piece this together naturally and attended sound sessions to craft it further.

Pete Raeburn from Soundtree composed a gripping score which wrapped itself around the narrative with a buzzing anticipation and ‘pent up energy’ that reflected our lead and her fluctuating emotions.

Sam Ashwell from 750MPH then led this collaborative team to craft sound. Balancing the tangible realism of the piece and its honesty with clever moments of sound which helped carry the narrative, to complete an immersive and visceral 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.