How do you create social media buzz when you don’t even have a brand Twitter or Facebook account? You try to encourage people to stop following other brands! Okay, maybe that’s too sinister a description of what Ajax is doing with its new social-media scrubbing tool, but so far, users are more than happy to do some social feed spring-cleaning.
When you head over to AjaxSocialWipes.com, you can choose either your Facebook or Twitter profiles to scan and clean up. For Facebook, the tool aggregates all of your likes in one place so you can see which ones you’re no longer interested in. A hand pops up with an Ajax wipe to clean away the item (no streaks!). For Twitter, the tool looks for junk tweets that indicate spam accounts, so you can remove them.
Ajax’s Social Wipes tool is a classic example of innovative brand utility, in which the brand is providing a real service to its audience with no strings attached. You don’t have to like or follow Ajax in exchange for its offerings, and there are no lengthy registration forms to fill out. Remember, the cleaning product company isn’t even on social media. So what does Ajax have to gain by providing the ability to “spring clean your social feeds”? A good, clean brand awareness of its product: Ajax Spray n’ Wipe multipurpose wipes.
“While Ajax isn’t necessarily offering anything new with its Social Wipes tool, it’s refreshing (no pun intended) to see something designed to help versus shove a product or service down someone’s throat,” said Mike Stenger of SocialNewsDaily.com.
The agency VML/GPY&R Sydney is the marketing elbow grease behind the cleaning tool. Managing director of VML, Aden Hepburn told Branding Magazine: “Agencies don’t often get the chance to create something that people really want or need, and whilst this is a little bit of fun, it’s a utility tool that a lot of people will find is actually something they’ve subconsciously wanted for a while … It will actually help them clean up the social clutter they’ve been building up for years.”
So how much digital scrubbing is taking place? Digiday reported that one week into the launch, Ajax helped wipe away more than 200,000 page likes on Facebook and nearly 20,000 Twitter spam bots from social feeds, with users spending an average of 5 minutes on the Ajax site.
The cleaning metaphor is clever and clear throughout the interactive experience, and that’s exactly what parent company Colgate Palmolive’s marketing manager Damian Facciolo says the company was going for.
“Ajax Wipes are all about efficacy and convenience,” Facciolo told the Australian AdNews. “Creating a product that delivered these same benefits in the parallel online world we all regularly inhabit, felt fresh and, frankly, like a no brainer.”
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