Why Persil Set Its New Campaign in a Prison

Today MullenLowe London released its newest campaign for detergent brand OMO/Persil, a campaign which takes the unusual creative approach of using prison inmates to deliver its message.

Continuing the promotion of its "dirt is good" approach, the new global integrated campaign, called Free the Kids, tackles the threat posed to childhood play. 

Revealing that the majority of children spend as little time outdoors as maximum security prisoners - with one in two spending an hour or less outside per day and one in 10 never playing outdoors - Free the Kids interviews a number of inmates at Wabash Correctional Facility in Indiana, USA, to highlight the importance of being outside, and record their shock at the damning statistics of childrens' outdoor play time. 

Developed in partnership with Sir Ken Robinson, world leading expert in education, creativity and human development, the campaign includes the above film, directed by RSA's Toby Dye, outdoor posters plus OMO/Persil is partnering with Project Dirt to deliver Outdoor Classroom Day, a global initiative aimed at getting millions of schoolchildren across the world to spend a day learning outside in nature. 

Below, MullenLowe's Alex Okada and Toby Dye discuss the project, including the difficult task of shooting in a maximum security prison.

What was the brief from the client?

Okada: The first part of the briefing was how to refresh and make this “dirt is good” message relevant again. While trying to find a fresh approach we discovered from studies that never in history had kids spent so little time playing outside.

We proposed a campaign in phases, the first one being to "provoke”; to quickly raise awareness about the problem and stimulate the debate within society, followed by an “educate” phase explaining why “dirt is good” for a child's development and ending with a “facilitate” phase where the brand proposes solutions to help parents to stimulate kids to go outside more often.

What did you think when you first read the brief for the campaign? 

Dye: I like ideas that go against the perceived wisdom of how something should be done and the concept for this definitely fell into that category. I thought it sounded so wrong that it had to be right – I loved it.

How does the brand altering its remit from being a ‘cleaning product’ to ‘child development brand’ impact on how you approach the campaign?

Okada: The brand idea was already about child development. The problem is that the communication was not reaching the parents as it should. In some countries, like Brazil, Turkey or India, the brand manages to be better known as a child development brand. In other countries, such as the UK, the message has never been properly landed.

This campaign was the opportunity to align markets to the same refreshed brand idea. You need to be a brand pretty confident about your cleaning capacity to promote a philosophy like that. So, at the same time that we are reconnecting with society about something that matters to people, we are implicitly reassuring our product superiority.

When and how did the idea around basing the film on prison inmates come about?

Okada: When looking for facts we found dozens of global articles about how kids' time outside has been diminishing over the years. But if I say that kids now are spending less than one hour a day in outside activities, a parent might not be able to know if that is enough or not. Is one hour a day good or bad?

But the moment we compare that time with the time spent outside by prison inmates, even the ones from a maximum security facility, it becomes crystal clear how dramatic the situation is. After deciding to compare children’s time outside with the prison inmate’s time, we had to find a impactful and emotional way to deliver that statistic.

We thought that a great way to show the absurdity of this situation was to interview the prison inmates [and] talk about the importance of their time outside in the yard. We had a basic script but the idea was to be real and documental.

How did you choose which prison to set the film in and why?

Okada: The process of selecting the prison was really complex. Our goal was to go beyond the market-by-market specific concepts of prisons and work with the iconic image that people have in their minds.

We decided to try the US first, since it best represents that iconic image. We use a researcher to talk with the 50 American state authorities and check if it was possible to film inside a real and active prison.

From the 50 states we got a “maybe” from six. From those six only two would allow us to film both the facilities and interview inmates. We ended up picking the Wabash Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Indiana. The Prison allowed us to speak with the inmates but ultimately they would need to volunteer themselves for the film.

You’ve shot in prisons before; what are the key elements to understand when shooting in such a location? 

Dye: Two key things, really. The first and most important thing to understand is that, fundamentally, it's no different to shooting a documentary anywhere else. It may seem a very hostile environment but that doesn’t mean that inmates and guards alike aren’t as intimidated and nervous about having a camera pointed in their face as anyone else in the outside world. A kind and caring attitude to the people you are filming will get the best results, just as they would anywhere else.

The other thing to remember is to always keep the guards updated of where you’re going and what you’re filming in a prison – anything unexpected and you’re liable to get a shotgun pointed in your direction.

How many inmates did you speak to in total and how long were you on location for?

Dye: For actual sit down interviews, we spoke with over 25 inmates and we were on location for four days, including one recce/research day.

Why was Toby the right choice to direct the film?

Okada: Toby had large experience in documentaries and has even shot one film that was set inside a real prison [Bodysnatchers of New York]. But at the same time, he had that beautiful cinematography, that care with the craft, that eye for the composition that we thought fundamental to alleviate the tension caused by the set up itself.

I’m glad that we chose Toby, he and Ben [Porter] the producer, were fantastic. And it was a pleasure to work with them, great guys.

The film element of the campaign is another example of ‘content’ over ‘traditional’ advertising; why was this the right approach for Persil and do you think this type of advertising will continue to gain traction with consumers?

Okada: In this campaign, the format of the idea was not defined upfront. We had lots of ideas on the table including experiments, apps, devices, guerrilla, etc. But the moment we presented this specific idea people started (nervously) to fall in love with it. 

I don’t believe in a “one size fits all model”. Each campaign, depending on the goals and the audience, needs a specific solution. What is true is that inside big companies like Unilever they are moving faster and faster to apply new ways to connect with consumers. The line between new and traditional is getting blurred, it has become more a conversation about how to maximize your message.

What was the hardest part of the shoot?

Dye: The hardest part of the project wasn’t shooting in a prison, it was getting access to a prison to shoot in. It took months of prep and we practically contacted every prison in the USA in the process.

And the most rewarding?

Dye: The most rewarding aspect of the shoot, by a country mile, was interviewing the inmates. Not only were many very erudite, a lot were downright philosophical. These are people who spend most of every day, year after year, locked up in a tiny cell with nothing to do but think about life.

The result being that they have thought about life and their lot in this world a lot more than most of you or I, so it was fascinating to have the opportunity to speak with them –especially on the topic of freedom.