Background

LOLA MullenLowe has been working with Persil and Dirt Is Good since 2022, and nearing the milestone 20th Anniversary of the Dirt Is Good campaign, the brand has started to tell stories through the lens of sport. In August 2023, Persil forged a partnership with Arsenal F.C. as a sponsor. Both Dirt Is Good and Arsenal shared a common passion for fostering emotional connections with supporters and consumers, as well as a commitment to executing ambitious and creative sponsorship campaigns.

This partnership marked the brand's venture into the world of sports, signifying the need for a prestigious campaign. To achieve this, top striker Bukayo Saka was selected as the campaign's hero. The primary objective was to position the brand within the sports realm, leveraging its untapped potential and reaching a new customer base that had yet to be explored.

The brief outlined the need to generate awareness and successfully launch Persil into the sports world. With a specific emphasis on Dirt Is Good’s most recent innovation: a detergent promising ‘first time, every time’ stain removal in a convenient capsule.

Idea

We kicked off the Arsenal F.C. partnership with "The Autograph," a short film where we flipped the script and made our product the villain. The film traces the journey of a young Arsenal fan who secures Bukayo Saka's signature on his shirt, only for it to be accidentally washed away by his parents with Persil. Following this mishap, the boy embarks on a quest throughout North London to find Saka, continually missing him until the footballer finally tracks him down. The spot concludes with a simple yet impactful message: "Clean Responsibly."

To build hype prior to the films premiere, we filled North London's streets with a teaser OOH campaign inspired by Bukayo Saka’s signature. But what people didn’t know is that seven of which bore his genuine autograph. We worked with Golin on strategic social and PR execution for this campaign, and with the aid of influencers, we unveiled this poster secret, and in a matter of minutes people had flooded the streets, turning our ads into priceless collector’s items.

Strategy

With this new partnership, it was vital to engage with fan-love and make an authentic connection to the club. As the team's most revered player, Bukayo Saka was the perfect match.

Our breakthrough moment came in thinking about the times that fans and players connect over moments of getting dirty: the marks on a shirt after a goal, the sweat and tears of a loss, or getting a much-coveted player’s signature on your shirt.

But that’s a ‘stain’ you don't want washed out. What if our tough stain removal was the villain in the story and did erase a real player's signature? That’s how The Autograph was born.

Execution

“The Autograph”, is a 3 minute short film directed by award-winning director, Vellas, that follows a young Arsenal fan as he finally manages to secure his idol's autograph, on his shirt. When tragedy strikes and his parents unknowingly include the prized possession in the family laundry, a quest begins to track down Saka across North London for another signature. Just as our protagonist about to give up, Saka serendipitously finds him, granting the fan his coveted autograph once again. The spot concludes with a simple warning “Clean Responsibly”.

The OOH posters were carefully crafted, starting with Saka signing seven blank posters, which meant each signature's unique size, position, and style would be a grounding element in the design of each. We employed a custom silk-screen printing technique to safeguard the authenticity of the autographs during production, and eventually each poster creatively depicted the film's plot.

The guerilla poster initiative was unveiled through social media channels, igniting excitement among fans who eagerly scoured the streets for these prized posters, echoing the journey of our young protagonist in the short film’s narrative. Renowned influencers and SPORTbible, the official media partner of the campaign, were responsible for generating online buzz with news on their website and social media platforms.

Results

High praise came from Juliet Slot, the Chief Commercial Officer of Arsenal Football Club, who said “It’s the best execution for a brand/player I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around a long time”. But more importantly, "Dirt Is Good" was positioned at the heart of sports culture, engaging a new audience with untapped potential.