The campaign was briefed at the start of the UK lockdown by the global brand team. The global situation had rapidly changed since the start of the year and homecare brands were pivoting to communication about bacteria and virus disinfection. Although this was important, the brand believed more could be done to address the experience of lockdown, the drastic change in consumers lives, and to align with their brand purpose of bringing joy. The global brand team briefed us to develop a socially native idea that allows the brand to meaningfully respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, to show how Cif restores our homes to have a positive effect on our wellbeing while reassuring consumers that Cif multi-purpose spray kills germs to protect the home. The objective was clear; to bring joy to people’s lives at this uncertain time.

We therefore generated Cif Sports, the ‘Lockdown Olympics’ which turned everyday cleaning into a sporting event, with Cif products central to the action.

The campaign was focused around the tagline ‘Keep Your Home Healthy’. A very relevant message in lockdown, with an increased need to clean your home, and also keep yourself mentally and physically healthy in inventive new ways. We created a range of sporting events focused around cleaning, and whether used by consumers as entertainment; with no other sport available, or to try for themselves, the creative aim was to bring some joy at a stressful and boring time.

Key to the creative idea was the use of humour; for the talent to have fun and not take themselves too seriously when shooting, and to complement this, the mocking style to the commentator in the voice over, bringing the overall creative tone to life.

When considering the brief, there was key understanding that lives had changed dramatically, there was a focus to keep homes clean and healthy, but also it was necessary to keep bodies and minds healthy. This was a challenge as consumers were unable to go out, and many forms of entertainment; such as sports, had all been cancelled overnight.

The majority of communication about the virus the news or from brands was serious in tone. While many important messages needed to be delivered, the consumers on the receiving end had little light relief from the unrelenting sense of doom playing out on their screens. Many turned to their social platforms for escapism and entertainment.

Cif would deliver the necessary messages about hygiene and cleaning in an entertaining form, reflecting the strange times they were living though and thereby ensure the brand stood out from the crowd and connected with its consumers.

To complete this brief in lockdown we needed to adapt our normal production process to solely remote production. This comprised of talent shooting themselves through mobile phones, or at home cameras, and creatives and directors providing virtual guidance. We also drafted in the assistance of Nick Heath; a famous sports commentator, Nick had become notorious in lockdown for commentating humorously on everyday activities when on daily exercise walks. We generated 5 videos, all with a product from the Cif range central to the sporting activity; Karate, Fencing, Hallway Curling, Ice-Skating, Synchronised Swimming. The campaign used products across the portfolio; kitchen, bathroom, window and floor cleaning, to show the full extent of the home cleaning required.

We were able to complete the production very quickly, with the production of videos from start to completion taking between 1-3 days each. We created the videos for the Canadian market with French versions also.

The campaign launched in Canada; under brand Vim, on Facebook and Instagram; with also the French versions. It generated 5.2 million impressions and 3 million in reach in 7 days, with ad recall up 12%, landing it in the top 30% for all measured CPG campaigns for Canada on Facebook and Instagram. Unfortunately, the Facebook/Instagram boycott came into effect across the region due to a concern the platform was not doing enough to counter hate speech across its sites, so the activity had to be paused at that time. It was also recently voted by the global Unilever community the ‘People’s Choice’ campaign in the Unilever creativity awards and due to uptake and interest by Unilever senior leadership and the Unilever community, the South African market have also completed a localised version of the campaign using local commentator Pommie Mbangwa; results pending.