People’s views on cleaning are changing. So is Clorox’s marketing

Cleaning is a chore. Or is it?

The ways people think about cleaning are evolving, according to a recent report from The Clorox Company. Cleaning can be a mood booster, according to research: After cleaning, 86% of surveyed Americans feel a sense of accomplishment, 85% feel satisfied, and 70% feel refreshed, numbers that are up 13 percentage points from 2016.

There are generational differences, too: Almost half of Gen Z consumers surveyed said they look forward to cleaning, a stark contrast from just 18% of older consumers surveyed.

That changing sentiment is informing The Clorox Company’s product development and is prompting changes to its advertising messages that aim to reflect those feelings, according to CMO Eric Schwartz. The company has transitioned from “very functional messaging” focused on germ-killing and odor-eliminating qualities, which were particularly important during the early days of the pandemic, to much more “emotional” and “process-oriented” messages, Schwartz said.

“The process itself can be enjoyable, and that’s not an invention,” Schwartz told us. “That’s how consumers are acting and talking about this. Younger consumers are not learning about cleaning from family-structured situations like the Sunday afternoon clean or spring-cleaning rituals of the family. They’re learning about cleaning from TikTok and Reels, and so they’re increasingly seeing the benefits of the experience of cleaning.”

Participation trophy: To meet consumers where they’re scrolling, Clorox has adopted a social-first approach to its marketing, aiming to make content more involved in organic conversations happening around cleaning on short-form video platforms.

“I know it’s sometimes talked about as meme-chasing and such, but for us, it’s about learning to participate,” Schwartz said. Doing so gives the brand “the benefit of the algorithm, helping you understand what resonates, and consumers reacting in a way that helps you understand what resonates, which makes our paid efforts better,” he added.

This time last year, Clorox debuted a new brand platform, “Clean Feels Good,” with work that reflects how the process can be enjoyable, as well as the emotional payoff that comes from successfully cleaning something. That work comes as Clorox has been monitoring the changing consumer sentiment around cleaning.

When it comes to products, Clorox has been adding new scents like Cherry Blossom and Peach to the mix, which are also designed to potentially make the cleaning experience that much more pleasing.

Ritual, smitual: Clorox’s research also found that the time people dedicate to cleaning is changing, too. People are cleaning roughly 5.6 hours a week, up from 5 hours in 2016, per the report, but are doing so in “shorter bursts” than before. That means that rather than waiting to do a massive deep clean for hours on the weekend, people are taking time throughout the day to do a quick clean and reset an area as part of a shift to “in-the-flow” cleaning, per the report.

That approach allows people to “get the emotional fulfillment of cleaning without the Sunday afternoon ritual of it,” Schwartz said, and it means that the company is aiming to position long-standing company offerings, like its Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, as products that consumers are happy to reach for again and again.

“The wipes need to smell amazing…to create that emotional blessing and to get to the outcomes, the hack outcomes, that those consumers are looking for.”