Cleanfluencers: Unilever's 'soap' opera on TikTok capitalises on #CleanTok trend

Launched as part of Unilever's #CleanTok partnership with TikTok, ‘Dirty Deeds: A Kitchen Crime’ is a series of five short videos co-produced with Sam Cotton, a TikTok creator well known for making comical animated characters out of objects who has 56 million (and counting) likes across his content. The idea is to entertain – or cleantertain – the growing audience of younger people who are passionate about cleaning.

#CleanTok is the most popular hashtag on TikTok with almost 100 billion views.

In the videos, products from Dirt Is Good (also known as OMO, Persil, Surf Excel, Breeze, Rinso, Ala or Skip), Cif and Comfort star as fun, animated characters.

Unilever's Cleanipedia website, which provides tips and advice on cleaning, is the exclusive sponsor of #CleanTok. Since the partnership began in June, #CleanTok has grown by more than 35 billion views, while Cleanipedia has seen traffic grow by a third and has reached 2.8 billion impressions globally.

Eduardo Campanella, Home Care Chief Marketing Officer, said: “Throughout the pandemic, we saw Gen Z engage with cleaning in a way it hadn’t done before, and the rise of #CleanTok. This demographic is only becoming more engaged and, with over half of TikTok users choosing to watch comedy sketches, we want to bring more branded entertainment to them in a format they’ll find appealing.”

The organic content produced on TikTok has provided unique insights into how consumers use its products. 'Cleanfluencers' have sparked a trend for cleaning white trainers with Cif Cream Cleaner, contributing to a 38 percent uplift in UK adults under the age of 28 buying Cif.

The Dirty Deeds series will air on the #CleanTok hub and Cleanipedia across 10 markets - UK, France, Netherlands, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines. TikTok is banned in India.

Alongside the launch of Dirty Deeds, Unilever will be holding the first-ever #CleanTok Awards, which will recognise the best content creators across four categories including most helpful hack and most extreme clean.

“We want to recognise the fresh, creative ideas that cleanfluencers on the platform have been sharing,” said Campanella. “It’s been fascinating to see their ideas and, as a result, understand more about what this audience wants from their home care products, as well as how they use them.”

The TikTok partnership builds on our Clean Future Strategy, which aims to create a new standard of cleaning superiority designed to delight consumers with a reduced environmental impact across cleaning product categories.