The Campaign

Listerine Clean Start uses hand-drawn mouth illustrations to remind people to rinse away their hateful words on social media. For each post, unique mouth designs were crafted following certain holidays or trending topics as themes. Each featured mouth talked about the usual words of hate thrown around during its corresponding holiday or event to catch people’s attention. But to counter the negativity, the mouths also showed how to move forward from hate towards a clean start.

Creative Execution

All of the mouth illustrations were crafted based on certain holidays and events that draw hate from social media. Every mouth was a unique character and design, and all the messages were in handwritten typography to reflect the current and personal statements of hate commonly thrown around online. The mouth illustrations always started with the hateful words or sentiments that needed rinsing, and concluded with an action that will lead to a clean start. The posts were uploaded on Instagram and/or Facebook as the discussions on certain holidays were still ongoing in order to be relevant in Listerine’s call for a clean start. All the illustrations were aggregated into an Instagram feed that people can go back to and see the different ways to have a clean start for every event.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Some unique and relatable posts stemming from personal moments of hate led to organic views and shares. For example, people related with the post titled “Daughter” for International Women’s Day. They agreed with the call to recognize women’s strength and bravery, resulting in over 123,000 views and over 4,700 shares. As a result, the call for a clean start by Listerine may have helped strengthen brand affinity, leading to sales and market growth.

Listerine has a range of multi-functional mouthwashes that fight against the bad stuff for the mouth, such as germs that cause bad breath, gum problems, and teeth weakening. Therefore, the relevant step to call for rinsing the hate and bad stuff online was taken by the brand. The use of mouth illustrations made especially for topical events was done in order to be relevant once posted. The mouths reflected the campaign’s goal to rinse away hateful words thrown around online. The posts were uploaded on Instagram and/or Facebook where they could easily reach digital natives. Posting on these social media platforms also meant Listerine was right where the hateful words were as they were being expressed. In doing so, the posts were timely and relevant to the different trending issues and holidays in spreading the message of having a clean start.