From puppy love to toilet talk: how Andrex is changing the conversation

Dan Howell is talking about poo again. It’s a hazard of the job for the MD of Kimberly-Clark UK&I these days, as he’s pivoted its Andrex brand to tackle toilet habits without the usual awkwardness the topic inspires.

“The phrase we’ve coined is that the UK is suffering from ‘social constipation’. We’re held up by stigma, prudery – it’s built into us from a relatively young age,” he says. “I’ve got kids, and you go through a point where you talk openly about what you do in the bathroom. Sometimes your kids literally come and show you. So you’re all in it together. And then they get to a certain age, and you stop talking about it, they stop talking about it, and it becomes this taboo, right?”

Andrex is facing the country’s ‘social constipation’ head-on, with its ‘Get Comfortable’ ad campaign a world away from its traditional work. Instead of the uber-cute and playful Andrex puppy, viewers witnessed an office worker building up the courage to take her ‘First Office Poo’. Another, titled ‘Post Poo Euphoria’, sees a suited man emerge from a cubicle in a dank public toilet and dance his way to the sink before nodding confidently down the camera lens at the viewer. Both end with the words “Get Comfortable” emblazoned on the screen.

“All the ads are born out of these human truths,” says Howell. “We could have played it safe. Andrex is a brand with such a rich heritage, but as with lots of traditional brands, how do you make them relevant? You’ve got to tap into things consumers really relate to. We do it with humour, and we talk about being disarming, so that’s what sits behind it.”

There is a small appearance in both ads for one of its famous Labrador puppies. And Howell has good news for anyone worried about the little dog’s future. Not only is it “synonymous” with Andrex, it “kind of gives you permission to push in other areas. Without the puppy it potentially becomes a bit too cold, a bit harsh. So we’re absolutely not moving away from the puppy.”

But Howell hopes the Get Comfortable campaign will encourage people to better engage with “their intimate health”. Kids are going to school not fully toilet trained, he says, and “teachers are telling us they’re losing hours in the classroom” to helping them. And at the other end of the age range, he mentions the UK’s very high “rates of late-stage bowel cancer diagnosis. And again, these taboos, this embarrassment, it holds us back and we don’t take action when we need to. We don’t go to see the doctor soon enough.”

That’s why, while hoping its ads loosen people up when talking toilet habits, Andrex has launched an app that helps parents toilet train their kids. And why it’s partnered with Bowel Cancer UK on various initiatives. But there is, of course, a business imperative, too.

“Andrex is a premium brand, and we hold a 30%-plus share of the market, but if consumers aren’t fully engaged, they’ll walk straight through and shop on habit, price – low engagement,” Howell explains. Whereas “once they’re engaged, they tell us they’re going to seek out the very best product in the category – and we know they’ll seek out Andrex.”

Engaging Gen Z and Gen Alpha shoppers

It’s early days, but Andrex is seeing its highest-ever volume contribution from advertising. With spend increasing from 2.5% of turnover in 2019 to 7% this year, the return “has gone through the roof” says Howell. And most importantly, the data is showing that “younger consumers are now starting to re-engage with the Andrex brand”.

It’s important because, despite putting £85m retail value on to the Andrex brand since 2019, the area where it has historically had the lowest penetration is younger households. The new advertising is a clear step towards Gen Z and Gen Alpha, whom Howell describes as “critical for a brand to survive”. Andrex now sells its products on TikTok and markets “a lot” through the platform, too.

“I think this is a challenge-slash-opportunity for any big traditional brand these days,” he says. “Consumers have a lot more control now, particularly younger ones. The way they consume media is much more on their own terms, and they demand a lot more from brands. They want brands to stand for something, and we’ve got to cut through. So, we made the call to go in the direction we’re going. It was a big leap of faith.”

Sustainability is one area where younger consumers demand more, and Howell says Kimberly-Clark UK is making big moves on that front. It has set a goal to use 100% renewable energy by 2030, with 80% of its electricity currently coming from wind. But is it possible for a company that deals in paper to honestly position itself as sustainable?

“Yes, I think it is,” he says. “The majority of the paper that goes into our products is from eucalyptus, which is a fast-growing, very regenerative fibre. And that’s [another thing] we’ve made commitments on in the UK, to get to 100% of our fibres being fast-growing by 2030.”

Currently, it’s at about 80%, and Howell hopes Kimblerly-Clark’s commitments will be enough to satisfy younger consumers. “What they want is for brands to just deal with the issue – but don’t charge us more and make sure you give us the right quality. When you look at some of the other players coming through, they’re quite disruptive, but often there’s a compromise. I won’t name names but you’re often asking consumers to pay more and/or have a lower-quality experience in the product itself. We try to avoid consumers having to make that compromise.”

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The hope is, interest piqued, younger consumers buy into Andrex and stay there, having experienced what Howell describes as “the best quality on the market, for sure”. Categories such as toilet roll are traditionally seen as highly commoditised – it is, after all, used for wiping one’s behind, so do people really care that much about what paper they use? Howell insists they do, and that the category remains rife for NPD.

“More than 50% of consumers tell us they’re dissatisfied with our category, that they don’t feel fully clean or have irritations. That tells us there’s lots of opportunity to innovate. Consumers think of our category as a personal care category the same as oral care, shampoo, etc. And Andrex is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, skincare brand in the UK because it’s used on people’s skin multiple times every day.”

So the company has invested £100m in the UK both to increase productivity and produce higher quality products that are “better on the skin”. “The goal here is to increase the value of the category,” Howell says. “There’s a huge opportunity to premiumise. So we’ve done that, and we’ve reminded people how great Andrex is. But then you have to deliver, because otherwise why would people choose to pay more when they’ve got an own-label alternative that could be 40%-50% cheaper? The reason they buy into Andrex is partly the brand – but then the experience delivers in terms of quality when they do.”