Zoflora - moving from disinfection to glamorous cleaning made people fall in love with the brand

Zoflora was created in the early 1920s as an alternative to the main disinfectant used to clean public spaces like dance halls and cinemas, which left a terrible odour. It offered twice the germ-killing power and it smelt amazing, as it was made with beautiful fragrance oils extracted from real flowers. It was really a no-brainer.

At the end of 2019, Quiet Storm started working with Zoflora as the strategic and creative lead, tasked with developing the brand strategy and a creative platform that could powerfully translate through the line, from TV to digital to activations developed with partner agencies.

Challenge

In 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 heavily 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 user 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. Naturally, 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 platform ‘Cleans Homes Beautifully’ - 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 into ‘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, which focused 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 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’. Using scenes from the TV ad, the game introduced germs flying through the screen. When swiped, the germs exploded into bursts of petals, and players would be 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. We also engaged influencers with a bespoke ‘ad screening’ box, including popcorn and pop to enjoy while watching the ad for the first time.

New Product Development

Results

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

Comparing four 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.