A strong option for challengers who need to break through in dullas-
dishwater categories, the Irreverent Maverick wants us all to stop
taking everything so damn seriously. Even the serious stuff.
And the Australian direct-to-consumer brand Who Gives A Crap
is a challenger in a commodity category with a genuinely serious
mission – it donates 50% of its profits from sales of its recycled toilet
paper to partner organisations delivering sanitation projects, including
building toilets, to those who need them. Since launching in 2013
the brand has expanded into the UK and US, donated over AUS$1.8m
(US$1.2m), and become one of the fastest-growing e-commerce
businesses in Australia.
So why aren’t they in the Missionary chapter? The clue, of course,
is in the name.
The big idea: Toilet paper is funny.
Who Gives A Crap is unapologetic in its embrace of toilet humour –
taking a joyfully flippant approach to a po-faced category. That sense
of energy and ‘not taking it too seriously’ runs throughout the brand –
from the bright patterned paper wrapping each roll to the design
of their impact reports: hell, why not announce your latest donation
with an interactive toilet flush, complete with bobbing rubber duck?
Their irreverent approach has been baked in from the very beginning
– the brand raised its initial AUS$50,000 worth of pre-orders through
an IndieGogo crowdfunding campaign that saw co-founder Simon
Griffiths sit on a toilet in a drafty warehouse for five days until they
raised what they needed. And it obviously runs through their marketing
communications – their 2016 ad from agency CHE Proximity is a drolly
hilarious parody of charity fundraising, imploring us to give “one crap
a day”, alongside a chain of suggestive visual gags (from dropping
kids off at the pool and laying cable to dropping logs).
While they don’t shy away from telling the serious story behind
their brand’s bigger purpose, it’s WGAC’s gloriously taboo-busting
scatological sense of fun, and promise of “20% more puns”, that
really makes an impact. And makes them sharply different from
every other brand in their category.