“Long Live Your Clothes”! How Are Media Made A Mark With Vanish’s Sustainability Campaign

It’s a challenge for any established brand in-market: how to continue to engage audiences, remain relevant and ultimately drive sales?

For market-leading stain removal and fabric care brand Vanish, the answer lay in a unique, inspiring campaign that harnessed women’s desire to influence helping the environment identified by Are Media’s HerFuture research study.

The #MakeTextileWasteVanish brand campaign was designed to tackle the nation’s textile waste problem by raising awareness of the issue.

To encourage shoppers to get on-board, Vanish teamed up with leading Australian textile recovery and textile waste organisation, UPPAREL, to incentivise people to help reduce textile waste. UPPAREL offered strong campaign synergy and the infrastructure to deliver tangible, on-the-ground results. 

The partners developed an in-store offering: for every Vanish Gold Multi Power product purchased at Woolworths between August 10 and September 6, 2022, customers were issued with a $25 UPPAREL voucher, giving them a free household recycling pick-up service for any clothing and linen which they could no longer wear or use, to ensure the items didn’t end up in landfill.

Vanish then engaged Are Media to share the initiative with its target demographic – both people aged 25 to 54, and women aged 25 to 39 who buy laundry booster products. Are Media’s commercial creative studio, headed by seasoned media executive Simon Smith, delivered, with an omnichannel campaign that aimed to educate, inspire and engage audiences, while also boosting Vanish’s perception as a product that helps prolong the life of clothes.

Tapping into Aussies’ enthusiasm for sustainable living, Are Media devised the Long Live Your Clothes campaign to encourage shoppers to rethink their approach to textile waste. To reach target audiences at-scale, Are Media delivered the campaign, in partnership with Elle, marie claire and The Australian Women’s Weekly, using a combination of advertorial, social, digital native and video.

Leaning into Elle and marie claire’s well-established fashion audience, Are Media engaged one of Australia’s leading fashion stylists Fleur Egan for a video content series on upcycling with style. This was layered with advertorial content, designed to build a deeper understanding of the issues around textile waste and how consumers can help, via quality garment care, and thoughtful upcycling.

A clever social campaign, using the hashtag #maketextilewastevanish, encouraged followers to share their sustainable wardrobe efforts.

Are Media’s creative director, Clare Catt, said: 

“The Vanish campaign was a fantastic opportunity to layer a commercial production with a powerful social issue, which we knew would resonate with our audience. Using the power of the marie claire’s fashion voice, we worked with Fleur Egan to get some powerful insight into upcycling with style. The combination of video, plus layered story-telling with vintage camcorder footage, helped to create a playful, colourful, and informative insight into one of Australia’s most inspiring stylists.”

Florence Paoli, marketing director of ANZ hygiene at Reckitt, said: 

“Vanish is committed to reducing textile waste by helping clothes live longer lives, which we’re proud to do via our #MakeTextileWasteVanish campaign in partnership with Upparel. Key to the Are Media campaign was the balance of education and inspiration driving cut through with the Are Media audience and encouraging them to take action. The campaign execution across multiple touchpoints delivered strong results against our KPIs.”

The campaign ultimately reached almost half a million followers (429,595) across Are Media’s social channels, with more than 8,000 interactions. A native piece in Elle online, “4 Easy hacks to extend the life of your clothes”, achieved an average dwell time of 3 mins 40 secs, significantly higher than the current average for native articles.

More than one in five (22 per cent) people 25-54 recalled reading or seeing the Vanish campaign in marie claire magazine/website/Instagram and/or the Elle website/Instagram recently. This is mostly driven by younger women 25-39, with laundry booster buyers’ campaign recall at 36 per cent.

Ultimately, the campaign delivered for both Vanish as a brand, and as a highly successful sustainability initiative. Post-campaign results showed 64 per cent of consumers took action offline after being exposed to the campaign. Furthermore a majority (56 per cent) expressing their intention to participate in a similar campaign next year. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive: customers felt inspired to recycle and re-wear their clothes, use quality care products, buy less and purchase Vanish – a win for the company. 

Additionally, the campaign helped to boost positive thinking about Vanish as a business, particularly its commitment to sustainable living. Post-campaign results showed that more than three in four (76 per cent) of shoppers said they were more likely to consider Vanish Napisan after viewing the campaign; the brand also recorded the highest-prompted awareness in market at 92 per cent and was number one in top-of-mind awareness at 41 per cent.

Vanish successfully achieved its mission of ‘helping clothes live many lives’.