MARKETING SPIN

Thursday's The New York Times highlighted two laundry soaps, Woolite and Era, that are thinking outside of the box to entice consumers.

Woolite hired horror auteur Rob Zombie to direct two of its commercial. The thinking: Some detergents torture your clothes. Long live your wardrobe.

We’ve repositioned Woolite as more of a daily-use detergent for all the fabrics that require special care, and we’ve been trying to communicate this to consumers over time,” said Jiri Kulik, general manager for United States household marketing at the Reckitt Benckiser North American headquarters in Parsippany, N.J.

“But we’ve always had trouble breaking through with the message,” he added, “because it’s very difficult to change a habit.”

After “some of the consumers in our focus groups described what their clothes go through with laundry detergent like a ‘torture,’ we got this crazy idea of the washing machine like a torture chamber for your clothes,” Mr. Kulik said, “and then we describe Woolite as the savior.”

Era is inspired by Chuck Norris.

Era is “Chuck Norris approved,” according to the cheeky campaign, which includes commercials on television and YouTube, online advertising and social media like Facebook and Twitter.

The Era campaign borrows from jokes that began appearing online in 2005, known as “Chuck Norris facts,” in the form of boldly exaggerated statements about Mr. Norris’s prowess as a fighter, a man’s man and a human being.

The premise of the humorous Era campaign is that Era is the Chuck Norris of detergents, battling — and beating — stains the same way he vanquishes bad guys. The theme of the campaign, “A lot of fight for a little dough,” expresses that thought as well as that Era is a value brand — priced lower than Procter’s flagship detergent, Tide, but higher than store brands.


Rob Zombie's Woolite commercial: