Challenge

At the end of 2019 Zoflora was the market leader in disinfectants in the UK. It had a very loyal following and it was showing continuous growth, despite never having done mass communication. Yet, its awareness and penetration were way lower than you’d expect for a market leader. The brand’s success was actually driven by a small group of people who bought a lot of it. And when we say a lot, we really mean it: they had cupboards full of it.

Growth could no more come from this heavy users base. The brand needed to reach new audiences. Not an easy task, considering that cleaning and disinfection is an incredibly competitive category, full of household names. Even more difficult when your brand has a colourful packaging that looks nothing like a disinfectant product, and a unique concentrated liquid format which is very different from the more common trigger sprays. So people either don’t notice the brand or have no clue what it is about. We needed a disruptive idea that would break the status quo and jolt shoppers out of autopilot.

The 'noise' + Insight

Would you ever expect people to obsess about a disinfectant brand? Well, people do with Zoflora. Its lovers, who call themselves ‘Zoflora addicts’, even refer to using the brand as ‘Zofloring’. Not cleaning or disinfecting, but something different: an overall more uplifting and rewarding experience.

We ourselves felt the same when using the product. Zoflora is truly one-of-a-kind and almost stands in a category of its own.

Brand Role

We embraced the brand’s uniqueness. Thanks to its amazing fragrances and distinctive look and feel Zoflora brings a touch of joy and glamour to the functional and power focused disinfection category. It doesn’t just clean rooms, it creates beautiful spaces. This would be our brand role.

Big Idea

We brought to life our brand role via the idea that whatever Zoflora does, it does it more beautifully than its competitors. We set the brand apart from the almost clinical nature of the category norms, presenting it as a more feminine, fun, and inspiring brand.

For AV, we used distinctive creative that breaks category conventions, showing very little cleaning action and using explosions of ingredients – shot entirely in camera to make it look more authentic - to deliver the amazing Zoflora fragrances. Initially, when covid was high on the agenda, and the Zoflora portfolio was limited to disinfectant, the campaign used the line ‘Kills germs beautifully’. This later evolved to the line ‘Cleans Homes Beautifully’ to support the growing portfolio and NPD.

The integrated campaign strategy and creative informed what ran across advertising channels including VOD, Print and media partnerships with the Daily Mail, where the focus was on demonstrating the beautiful nature of the campaign and distributing sampling coupons.

Below the line we used audience targeted dynamic digital display ads that featured different imagery and messaging that reflected the needs of the individual audience profiles. In-store, POS broke cleaning aisle norms, with beautiful fragrance bursts, inspiring shoppers to clean their homes beautifully.

Behind everything was a new, beautiful VI and brand guidelines developed by Quiet Storm, leading to a full website redesign to bring the new visual language and tone to every product and touchpoint.

The strategy was also rolled out into social channels by the wider agency group. Designed to engage both new and existing users an interactive game was created based on the highly popular ‘Fruit Ninja’. This used scenes from the TV ad, and introduced germs flying through the screen. When swiped, the germs exploded into bursts of petals, and players were rewarded with discount codes and prizes. Further social competitions were run, where participants needed to tag a friend to enter, spreading the Zoflora message even further. Influencers were also engaged, with a bespoke ‘ad screening’ box, including popcorn and pop to enjoy while watching the ad for the first time.

Results

Being brave and breaking category norms proved successful for Zoflora, and transformed the brand from niche disinfectant to household name in cleaning.

Comparing 4 weeks after launch, with four weeks before, Zoflora’s value share grew 24%, sales grew 14% and penetration increased 43%. In total the brand saw £9m year-on-year brand growth, taking the brand worth to £47m.