A plastic vomiting washing machine is making its TV debut as part of smol’s largest-ever marketing campaign, in partnership with creative agency Mother and production studio Drool.
The new campaign focuses on a vomiting washing machine which is throwing up laundry plastic as it aims to highlight the fact that UK households get through more than 110 million plastic laundry containers each year.
The campaign will run for eight weeks on TV and BVOD, complemented with OOH media and underpinned by smol’s digital performance media.
“We are deploying a playful metaphor to dramatise the shocking amount of laundry plastic waste the UK goes through attempts to sidestep the inertia in this market,” said Oli Rimoldi, creative at Mother.
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“We’re hoping the ‘plastic vomiting washing machine’ will make people smile while drawing their attention to the plastic problem – offering them an easy, simple solution to make change.”
A pioneer of plastic-free laundry packaging, smol was looking to reignite the anti-plastic cause, encouraging the switch to the UK’s first brand to offer laundry capsules in plastic-free packaging.
“This campaign aims to introduce smol to an audience fatigued by anti-plastic messaging, with a humorous, attention-grabbing concept: a washing machine that vomits the plastic waste it’s likely to get through in its lifetime,” said smol CMO Hillary Strong.
“It mirrors our audience who are, quite literally, sick of plastic.”
The media plan – managed by Craft Media – has been designed to drive cut through and notice by leaning into smol’s challenger brand personality, with balanced channels and a buying approach that “signals quality and drives familiarity”.
The film was directed by Freddie Powell at Drool, and shot entirely in the UK.
