AdMiration feature: Cushelle's “Selfishly Soft”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we researched Cushelle’s “Selfishly Soft” ad. The ad is part of their campaign created to encourage consumers not to compromise on quality and embrace a “Selfishly Soft” moment. 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a man dressed up as a magician entering a bathroom, narrowly escaping being hit with some cake that’s thrown in his direction. As he closes the door, the sound of kids playing and yelling is suddenly muted, and he sits on the toilet with a sigh.

Suddenly, the scene pans to a corner of the bathroom to Kenny the Cushelle Koala saying, “Well abracadabra, if it isn’t the magnificent Jeff.” Kenny starts casually walking the room as he continues, “He’s bailed on the kiddies party for a well-earned sit-down. And as if by magic, all is calm.” As Kenny gets closer, Jeff stares at him in silence, wide-eyed.  

The scene suddenly changes to Kenny lounging in a bidet of another bathroom saying, “Denise certainly knows how to treat herself. She’s traded in her real life hubby for the House Husbands of Alaska.” The scene zooms out as Denise, sitting on a toilet and still glued to her phone, reaches behind a plant nearby and pulls out a roll of Cushelle toilet paper as Kenny narrates, “She’s even tucked away a roll of the soft stuff just for her. The perfect compliment to those rugged hunks.” 

The view pans back to Denise, holding her phone and staring at her soft Cushelle roll, when she finally notices Kenny and lets out a horrified scream. 

Finally, a third scene opens with a man dressed in a suit entering an office bathroom, as Kenny narrates, “While the office listens to Karen’s synergy prezzo, again, Simon’s taking a 20 minute intermission.” Simon enters one of the stalls, where Kenny is laying on the changing table, saying, “In the big stall no less; the only stall fit for such a captain of industry.” Simon opens his briefcase that holds a roll of Cushelle toilet paper, to which Kenny comments, “Oh, and he’s got his own roll…bit weird. But I like it.”

The ad concludes with Kenny in a purple room, leaning next to a package of Cushelle toilet paper on a display, saying, “When it comes to that special you time, treat yourself. New Cushelle Quilted. Selfishly soft.” 

3 facts

• The ad scores in the top 15% of all UK ads in potential to drive short-term sales and in the top 20% in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales. 

• It was highly humorous but also left viewers feeling significantly more love towards it compared to the average UK ad. Men were the biggest drivers of the outperformance on love reaction, relating to the insight behind the ad more than women.

• Despite relying heavily on humor, the ad was able to clearly convey product features like softness and high quality, which ultimately helped drive its high purchase uplift score. 

2 learnings

• Brand assets like characters or mascots, beyond driving distinctiveness, can help give your brand a clear personality and tone of voice. They can also convey your product features and benefits in a more creative way. 

• Conveying your product benefits in an emotionally engaging way will not only help drive immediate sales but also strengthen your brand credentials in the long-run. 

1 reflection

Are you using humor effectively to get closer to your audience? Using humor to address a taboo subject or bring light to a consumer behavior that’s not widely talked about can break down barriers with the audience, allowing them to relate and connect with your brand on a deeper level. 

The ad scores in the top 15% of all UK ads in potential to drive short-term sales (sales impact: 89) and in the top 20% in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales (brand impact: 83). 

Among men, the ad performed in the top 5% on sales impact and in the top 10% on brand impact.

The “Selfishly Soft” campaign was born from the insight that 84% of people in the UK would love some more “me-time” moments during the day, but life inevitably gets in the way.

Furthermore, a study commissioned by bathroom experts Pebble Grey revealed that a third of men admit to hiding out in the bathroom to get some “peace and quiet” compared to only just over a fifth of women. No wonder men score the ad higher overall! It’s more relevant to them (relevance: 3.8 men vs 3.5 women vs 3.3 norm) and it outperforms on the brand meets needs metric (4.2 men vs 4.0 women vs 3.8 norm). 

Despite men being able to relate to the ad more than women, it’s distinctive across the board (ad distinctiveness: 4.0 vs 3.6 norm) and sets the brand apart from others in the category (brand distinctiveness: 3.7 vs 3.5 norm). People also felt like it would have the potential to be shared around online beyond the average UK ad (viral potential: 55 vs 47 norm).

While slightly under, the ad scored statistically in line with the country norm on unaided brand recall (68% vs 72% norm); however, those who did correctly identify the brand found it quite easy to do so. Kenny the Koala was established as the brand “mascot” fourteen years ago when the brand formerly known as Charmin rebranded to Cushelle. 

Since then, Kenny has been a strong brand asset alongside the color purple and the logo. Over half of respondents said they recognized the Cushelle brand because of the koala bear, which was the most recognized brand asset in the ad. 

Kenny’s presence throughout the ad made it “uniquely Cushelle,” (uniqueness of brand impressions: 4.0 vs 3.8 norm). However, not everyone is familiar with the brand or the fact that their mascot is a koala. With the brand name and logo being mentioned and shown respectively only in the final five seconds of the one minute ad, it was easy for those people to miss what brand it was for. Had the brand logo been shown earlier or more consistently throughout the ad, perhaps a higher number of people would have correctly identified Cushelle as the brand advertised. 

Cushelle managed to evoke strong positive emotions (overall emotion: 51% vs 42% norm) throughout the ad, with the audience left feeling significantly more love than the average UK ad (love reaction: 26% vs 19% norm) and finding it much funnier than the norm (laughter reaction: 18% vs 7% norm). 

While the laughter reaction was similar across demographics, men felt significantly more love towards the ad than women (love reaction: 30% men vs 22% women). This is perhaps due to the fact they were better able to relate to the insight fueling the creative idea behind it. 

People absolutely loved the sense of humor, which made the ad incredibly memorable. It was seen as simple, yet highly enjoyable and the cheekiness of the koala was highly praised as attention grabbing. Viewers also liked the way it showed different types of people and how their “me times” differed, with Cushelle being the constant across the scenarios. 

Here’s what people enjoyed most about it:

• "I like the man taking his own toilet paper because he wanted to make sure that he had the best quality and home comforts."

• "I think it's funny that the woman screams. It's an unexpected ad for toilet paper, which I like. The koala is very cute and it does highlight the idea that people do make an event out of going to the toilet."

• "Funny, clever, surprising, keeps you interested, very comedic in the sense that the toilet paper is a "treat."

• "I liked the way they used different people in separate scenarios, and the way they made the product look very comfortable."

• "I loved the koala. It made going to the loo a moment of escape. Almost a guilty pleasure."

• "I liked how it presents Cushelle as a high-quality brand in a humorous, yet memorable way."

While telling a story about the “me time” we all look forward to during our busy days, Cushelle successfully lands a message around the high quality and softness of its product. This is explicitly conveyed through the end tagline that gives the campaign its name, “Selfishly Soft,” but is mostly implied throughout the ad. 

This helps drive the ad’s ability to deliver a purchase uplift for the brand (purchase uplift: 24% vs 15% norm) with 41% of respondents saying they would choose Cushelle the next time they are buying toilet paper after watching the ad, versus only 17% of respondents who said the same before watching the ad. 

This was a very distinct and humorous ad from Cushelle! 

What did you think? And how do you think it compared to Andrex's “First Office Poo” ad we researched? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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