Febreze is a premium air care brand that genuinely eliminates odors and freshens air more effectively than competitors. But cynical consumers didn't believe there was any difference. Rather than telling people how good Febreze is we proved it with unforgettable experiences: blindfolding participants and asking them what they could smell in visibly disgusting environments. The surprising results then became content for a highly effective integrated campaign.

Our real life 'Breathe Happy' experiments stood out in the category and beyond, getting people talking about air care for the first time in years and helping turn the North America business around a remarkable 36% points in 10 weeks. The campaign was then rolled out across 18 markets and helped Febreze become one of the fastest growing P&G brands worldwide, now valued over $1 billion.

People tend to spray Febreze on their carpets, couches and curtains. To increase sales, my quantitative analysis identified denim as the fabric with the greatest potential for additional usage opportunities. However, we needed to convince people that spraying their clothes with Febreze was a socially acceptable thing to do. 

Instead of simply developing advertising for Febreze to encourage people to spray their product on their jeans, our survey helped us realize a far more compelling and trust-worthy source of information: the care label. We developed a new “Febreze” Fabric Care Icon and proposed partnering with jeans brands to recommend Febreze as an effective way to care for their clothes, gaining a permanent place among long established laundry care directions.

As part of Febreze’s broader growth strategy we partnered with them to identify viable new spaces beyond the home, where people would be open to enhanced freshness and odour control benefits and design concepts that would effectively fulfil their needs.  

Of the several key spaces we shortlisted, The car was validated as the most significant environment where people recognised that they could benefit from fresher air experiences and that the current options available on the market were under-delivering. 

This led to the creation of Febreze Car Clips. Designed to provide high quality fragrances consistently for 30 days, with an adjustable odor control feature which solved consumer dissatisfaction with existing options, like market leading ‘magic trees’ which start overwhelmingly strong, then fade away rapidly. 

Febreze Car Clips have become a significant pillar within Febreze’s product portfolio and the most significant driver of additional business growth, helping Febreze become one of P&Gs rare ‘billion dollar brands’.