How Who Gives a Crap Used Storytelling and Humor to Turn Toilet Paper into Impact while Donating $11M to Charity

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Who Gives a Crap is THE case study for impact storytelling, building a global toilet paper brand from commodity to differentiated product

Who will love this

• B corp baes

• NGOs looking for creative impact campaigns

• Founders and funders of impact companies

• Fans of a strong brand voice

• Limited drop lovers

Today

Good morning!

Have you ever had one of those moments in your career where you think: this is it: rock bottom.

10 or so years ago I sat in on a toilet paper focus group. If you’re asking yourself: “Amanda, what on earth could you learn in a toilet paper focus group?!” you’ve obviously never found yourself in a 6 way ‘scrunch or fold’ debate.

Anyways. I wondered: is there anything a toilet paper company can do to stand out?

Who Gives a Crap are the answer to my question. They:

• 📺 Livestreamed their founder sitting on a toilet until he crowdfunded $50,000 (50 hours, for the record) 

• ❌ Use no ‘virgin’ paper, only 100% recycled paper (fun fact: recycled paper has one-third of the carbon emissions of paper made from virgin wood!)

• 🐝 Are a certified B Corp 

• 📦 In contrast to plastic-wrapped grocery store brands, they’re nearly plastic free (bar the strip of tape that closes their boxes)

• 🖤 Donate 50% of its profits to toilet-building charities like Wateraid and Splash: As of 2023, they’ve donated $11,222,000

Toilet paper is a commodity.

Brand is the antidote to being a commodity. 

Roll up 🧻 let’s drop in and explore how they did it!

Three Things Who Gives a Crap do to Turn Commodity into a Differentiated Product

Unpopular take (amongst marketers, anyway): No one cares about your brand. People don’t want to think too hard about it. They have better things to do. A marketer’s task is to make it easy for people to choose your brand. And the way to do that is to make people feel something positive. If you feel nothing, you do nothing. If you feel positively, you buy more. The three Fs are a useful heuristic for creating shortcuts for people to remember you:

• Fame: People are more likely to choose brands they remember.

• Fluency: Strong, clear, brand assets (also known as distinctive assets) make a brand easy to buy.

• Feeling: People want to buy more from brands that make them feel good.

We’re going to see how Who Gives a Crap leveraged the 3 Fs to build a globally famous toilet paper brand.

1️⃣ Make Memories (Fame)

Brand building is making memories (sweet, right?). Brands that come to mind more easily are more likely to be purchased. From Day 1, Who Gives a Crap have been strategic in using every opportunity to build fame.

When you’re a startup on a shoestring budget (WGAC would know, they bootstrapped themselves for the first 9 years!), you can’t buy every customer.

So what’s a company to do? Build fame.

Building fame at launch

Who Gives a Crap launched with a crowdfunding campaign (very 2010 no?!) with a pun-filled launch video starring zany, charming founder (Simon Griffiths) sitting on a toilet in an empty warehouse, pledging not to move until he crowdfunded $50,000 to fill the warehouse with the first bulk order.

The pitch: subscription toilet paper made from recycled paper, with 50% of profits going to toilet building charities.

“We’re busting to press go on the first production run,” Griffiths quipped.

Who Gives a Crap actually engaged with their funders (we love that), giving them the option to receive a handwritten thank you note from the founder on a piece of toilet paper, get launch party invitations, or send a WGAC team member to your house to clean your toilet.

^^Tip: This stuff isn’t just entertaining for people to read, it’s catnip for journos, too.

Building fame through limited drops (yes, of toilet paper)

Who Gives a Crap are some of the best in the biz at building brand marketing that’s worth talking about and driving sales. Who Gives a Crap behave more like a sneaker company than a toilet paper company, releasing limited edition drops that get people talking. Some of my favorites:

• Valentine’s Day - Flush Your Ex

• Artist collabs like this one with illustrators Craig & Karl

• Earth Day toilet paper

Also, as an aside: let’s put the growth vs brand debate (it’s never either or) to bed once and for all: this is how you do on-brand growth marketing.

2️⃣ Build A Brand Identity Born to Stand out (Fluency)

Brands that are recognizable are easier to buy.

Fluency, or having strong, distinctive brand assets, builds mental shortcuts for people to remember you buy.

WGAC’s brand identity looks nothing like the rest of the toilet paper aisle, and that’s intentional. Every other toilet paper brand’s packaging is blue or clear (the better to see the toilet paper). There’s an important lesson here: if you don’t want people to think about you like everyone else, for heaven’s sake, don’t look like everyone else.

Building Fluency Through a Maximalist Visual Identity

I often hear people say things like: “the rest of the category is green, have we considered adding green to our palette?” or “everyone has a tree or a planet on their website, can we put one on ours?” NO. This is a mistake.

WGAC doesn’t look like every other toilet paper brand because they’re not selling what every other toilet paper brand is. They’re selling impact.

Let’s be crystal clear: there is real hard work required to build a truly differentiated product, but your brand’s identity, or what you look and sound like, is a lever for helping people build the mental shortcut to understanding how you’re different. Bright colors, cheeky copy? That’s WGAC. 

Building Fluency Through a Cheeky Voice

Can brand voice be a distinctive brand asset? You betcha. Think about:

• Liquid Death

• Oatly

• KFC

Brand voice is one of the easiest levers to pull to build your brand. Why? You have to communicate through writing. Might as well make it memorable! Also: So much out there is so boring.

WGAC use every word to build a recognizable brand voice:

• Ads

• On-pack copy

• Customer service emails

If WGAC were an actor, they’re never out of character.

3️⃣ Invest in Feel Good Impact Storytelling (Feeling)

OK. Let’s talk about our feelings. Making people feel good about your brand is the goal. Who Gives a Crap’s proposition: feel good toilet paper. Telling people how they are making an impact is imperative to positioning themselves as the feel-good toilet paper brand.

WGAC have unshackled impact storytelling from annual reports (that let’s be honest - very few will read) and instead deliver them in vehicles that engage people. One of my favorite executions form them last year was this Winnie the Pooh deforestation storybook, a republished classic with all the trees removed 👇

Tip: If you’re running a sustainability or impact program - or really, any piece of information that you want to liven up - think beyond the press release and the annual report. Look at where stories live naturally, then build on that:

• Films => make a documentary. Patagonia are masters at this.

• Stories => make a graphic novel, like this one from Habito

• Art => commission an art piece to represent impact

Three things to love & learn from 📚

Who Gives a Crap leverage a strong brand identity (fluency), memorable stunts and activations (fame) and impact storytelling (feeling) to turn a commodity into a differentiated product. Here’s three exercises any company can to do move from ‘have to buy it’ to ‘gotta have it’ 👇

• Make memories. Who Gives a Crap are some of the best at memorable marketing. Flushing your ex? Turning the Superbowl into a giant bum? Parking a founder in a warehouse until they raise $50,000? So weird. But also, so wonderful. Ask: Has your brand done anything memorable that someone (not a marketer) would talk about at a BBQ?

• Build a brand identity born to stand out. WGAC is a decidedly zany brand. But they’re committed to it: and they stand out. Ask: If you your brand next to your competitors and covered up names and logos, could you pick it out of a line up?

• Get in your (impact) feelz. Lots of companies have sustainability or impact programs, but fail to play back their impact in interesting ways. My tip? Take inspiration from feelings-mongers like artists, film-makers and comedians - not other marketers. Ask: If banned from writing about impact on a blog or in an annual report, how might we make people feel good about the impact we made?

And that’s a wrap on WGAC! 🧻 If you liked this, subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s brand.

🧹Housekeeping 🧺

It’s me. I’m the housekeeper.

• Want help auditing, defining, or bringing your brand to life? That’s what I do. Reply to this email to book a chat.

• Hot takes wanted. I’m considering a ‘behind the brand’ series of interviews. Have a brand or brand owner in mind you’d like to hear from? Hit me with people and brands you want to hear from! 🤙

• Get some toilet paper! If you feel moved to buy some good-for-the-earth toilet paper, feel free to use my referral code and fund my sustainable lifestyle.

✌️Thanks so much for reading - I appreciate your attention!

Amanda

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