Months before Dr. Squatch’s Sweeney ads aired, the brand was listening on social media and anticipated its audience might ask for her bathwater. One comment underneath the original Instagram campaign asking for the liquid received 40,000 likes.
“There was this undercurrent of conversations related to Sydney where guys [were] joking about wanting to buy her bath water,” Ludeke said. “I don’t think they meant it in a literal sense, or maybe now it’s apparent they did.”
For the “Bathwater Bliss” campaign, Dr. Squatch “didn’t really put a lot of money behind advertising,” Ludeke admitted, but he wouldn’t share a figure. No agency was used, and the creative was developed in-house.
Still, it’s gone viral in what he described as a “flash,” designed to get people’s attention and encourage men to look deeper at the brand, which avoids sulfates and parabens in its products, and carries out philanthropic work with veterans and other groups.
“In our category, which is highly commoditized, most of the behaviors are habituated, so people are just buying the stuff that they’ve been buying for years,” the marketer added. “They don’t really think about it.”
‘Women also love Sydney Sweeney’
According to Grand View Research, the men’s personal care market is projected to grow at a rate of 9.1% annually, reaching $67.2 billion by 2023.
Though Dr. Squatch’s user base is growing, data from Nielsen shows it’s women who control most household budgets, including up to 80% of consumer packaged goods spend. So, running a campaign intended for the male gaze where Sweeney derides “dirty little boys,” with a soap that smells like “morning wood,” could be a risky move.
From the development stage, the actor has been involved in ideating on product and creative, said Ludeke. She even addressed the controversy around the launch via her Instagram days after it went live.
Ludeke said consumer feedback so far has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“We are really working to understand that a lot of times women may be the purchaser for the household,” he said. “Women also love Sydney Sweeney. While there may be some people who say they don’t like the concept, overall, what we’ve heard is people appreciate a woman who is in power, who’s in control, who’s able to have fun and not take themselves too seriously.”
“And one thing about Sydney is she’s always in control,” he said, adding that nothing was done without her or her team’s approval.
Lathering up consumers
Dr. Squatch sells a distinctive core product—all-natural, cold process soaps—with an ambitious objective: getting everyday American men to care about the ingredients in their toiletries.
