Finding Creativity in the Everyday

Life is rich with everyday moments that matter.?

Our brands live in the everyday. We provide products that people use daily like Pampers, Always, Tide, Ariel, Dash, Fairy, Dawn, Cascade, Bounty, Charmin, Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Olay, Secret, Old Spice, Crest, Oral B, Gillette, Venus, Vicks and many more. You probably don’t think about them much, except for the few minutes each day when using them. And that’s perfectly ok, as long as they deliver the absolute best performance for the job you want done and you’re delighted with the benefits provided for you and your family.?

It's probably safe to say that diapers, laundry soap, toothpaste, bodywash and toilet paper are not the first products that come to mind when it comes to creativity. But actually, they offer a huge opportunity, because everyday moments are rich with creative potential.

The average person experiences more than 26,000 days in a lifetime, translating to more than 2 billion seconds. With more than 7 billion people in the world, that’s a tremendous number of moments to consider.?

You may be surprised to find out that when it comes to daily-use household and personal care products, people can experience many struggles associated with them…which opens up interesting ways to dramatize problems to be solved and demonstrate unique ways to solve them with superior performing products. For example, did you know that in the past week, 50% of parents have experienced waking up in the middle of the night to change their baby’s diaper that leaked? That less than half of people are satisfied with the stain cleaning performance of their laundry detergent? That 20% of dishwashing loads have a dish that didn’t get clean so it has to be washed again? That brushing with a manual toothbrush leaves behind 50% of plaque bacteria? That only 1 in 10 women claim to be having a great hair day on any given day?

So, think about it.?Billions of people with billions of moments multiplied by seemingly endless opportunities for solving problems with the best performing daily use products. That equals exponential possibilities for finding creativity in the everyday and enormous potential for delighting people through innovation and creativity that drives growth for brands and markets.

How? To make that happen, there are three actions to consider.

Find those everyday moments that matter.

That means getting out from behind your computer and spending time with the people your brand serves. For our brands, it’s visiting people in their homes and where they shop, to observe actual behavior in how they experience our products. It requires human interaction to get the true essence of a moment — like the first whiff of clean, fresh laundry, the importance of a smooth shave when kissing your adorable little grandson, or the wonderful feeling of that soft, fresh pillow and sheet after a long day. Human moments are the ones that matter.

Find how your brand matters in those moments.

How does it help get the job done? Is there a problem that it can uniquely help solve? Is there a way that using the brand naturally fits into the situation and makes it just a little bit better? It’s important to define how the brand provides a tangible and noticeably superior performance benefit — like clothes that are fresh as if dried outdoors, the cleanest, closest shave, irresistible softness and comfort from your favorite fabrics — while also thinking expansively about how your brand contributes to emotional outcomes and how they make you feel.?

Find the magic of a creative brand idea to make those moments matter more.

It’s where both sides of the brain work together to combine logic and feeling. How do you know when you’ve landed the idea? Your spine tingles. It’s that physiological reaction when something really touches you. Logic connects the dots in your brain and emotion makes you feel in your heart and your soul. Even with all the technology available to us, the answer won’t be found in the data or the algorithms. The answer is in the idea which comes from the heart and the soul. AI doesn’t get the tingles, humanity matters.

Our brands proudly live in the everyday. Let’s look at a few recent examples of finding creativity in the everyday.??

Every year the people of China celebrate the start of the Lunar New Year. Chinese New Year is the most important holiday — a time reserved for family. From all over the country, people travel to their hometowns to be with parents, grandparents and extended family. It’s a rare and special time for gathering and good food, specially prepared for reunions. And there’s a beautiful everyday moment that matters, when a loved one says the most mentioned sentence in Chines homes — “wash your hands and eat.” ?A small but important everyday act of love that matters and evokes the feeling of being home. And Safeguard’s superior germ protection matters because it safeguards your home and safeguards your family’s health.

In 2015, Ariel Share the Load began changing the minds of people in India, notably men, that laundry is a woman’s job. At the time 79% of men thought so, but over time this campaign has helped reduce that belief to 25%. There is still room for improvement, but more husbands, fathers, grandfathers, sons and friends are now sharing laundry duties. The Ariel brand matters, because it consistently delivers superior cleaning performance, no matter who does the chore. But another problem persists — 75% of women have said they find it challenging to mentally break free from household chores…but a solution is to share the load with the home team. A poignant moment of concern about the everyday tasks of caring for home while away – with the laundry chore and the Ariel brand at the center. This enduring idea makes these moments matter more — changing attitudes, changing habits, and changing business performance.?

50% of people have a predisposition to dandruff every day but if you use Head & Shoulders in every wash, it actually prevents dandruff, so people who use the brand DON’T have dandruff! That led to the “I Don’t” campaign which is now expanding throughout Europe to find local everyday moments where the brand matters, even in remote villages in Greece, where having dandruff is prime news for local gossip. This fun and highly talkable campaign is making local moments matter more and significantly growing the brand and the shampoo market in Europe.

Let’s explore another situation — After coming home late, have you ever faced the question from your partner, significant other, or your mom or dad, “where have you been?” You better have a plausible story and how you smell may make a difference in how believable it is, especially if you’ve been gone for 72 hours and return smelling like pi?a coladas which bring back memories of beach clubs and other special moments. They don’t usually involve a bear, but they do smell nice, and convince people that Native’s long-lasting deodorant can handle any situation for 72 hours — no matter how extreme.

Finally, we’re getting ready for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games where people are eagerly anticipating those amazing moments of athletic performance and winning big on the world stage. But what about those little wins that happen every single day? We’re finding creativity in those daily little wins by featuring more than 30 brands and how their superior product performance makes every day just a little bit better.

The upcoming film called Rising Phoenix: A New Revolution is another great example that includes inspiring stories about the little and big wins Paralympic athletes and people with disabilities are striving for and achieving. But we also thought we’d try to hit the funny bone a bit by partnering with Hartbeat and the NBCU/Peacock team with a fun program that will stream during the 17 days of the Olympic Games. It takes the everyday jobs our brands do and turns them into epic moments of competition that are definitely NOT the Olympics. The program is called The Other Games and will feature stupendous and somewhat ridiculous feats of athletic prowess with our brands that you too can try at home!

For example, the Olympic Games has the Discus event, but The Other Games has the far more challenging Dirty Dishcus competition featuring Dawn and Cascade in action.?

The Olympics has Curling with brooms, but The Other Games has Swirling with Swiffer PowerMop.

The Olympics has the Steeplechase track and field competition, but hurdling through the water jump is nothing compared to the mud and dirt obstacles in the Tide StainChase.

This array of work that we’re developing with our creative partners is leading to brand growth and making markets bigger. It’s work that draws from insights found in everyday moments that matter. Work that shines the light on how the brand matters in those everyday moments by demonstrating superior performance. And work with powerful brand ideas that make those everyday moments matter more.

We’re at yet another inflection point in the creative industry with the next leap of technology power available at our fingertips. But sustained growth is only possible when we harness that power in ways that deliver superior innovation and creativity, when we focus on serving people with better offerings that delight them and provide more value in their daily lives, and when we bring the humanity we all have inside of us, every single day, to unlock the power of ideas. How to make that happen is right in front of us…finding creativity in everyday moments where brands matter and where brilliant creative brand ideas make those moments matter more.