Can a PR program drive the strategy for an entire equity? The answer is yes if the program was Boo to the Flu and the groundbreaking day care study that came just before it . With the two programs—and the vision of the marketing lead at the time—- Clorox built its Health and Wellness platform.
Before Health and Wellness, the Clorox brand was talking only about cleaning and whitening. But PR saw more and more media stories and online discussions starting to question whether we were too clean for our own good. The idea for Boo was simple; To show how there are times in the year when disinfecting is not just a nice to have but a must have. It’s a lesson we all learned during Covid. But this work came in the aughts when we still thought deadly outbreaks were something that happened somewhere else; when we weren’t worried about germs.
For Boo to the Flu, we partnered with the non-profit Families Fighting Flu and funded free flu shots for children in cities across the country. We went to the CDC to make the case successfully for “the fifth bullet” to be added to flu prevention guidelines. In addition to getting plenty of rest, drinking fluids, washing your hands, and protecting your cough, everyone going forward would be reminded to “disinfect frequently touched surfaces.”
The work gained so much traction that our advanced analytics team was able to measure its impact on volume as if it had been a paid campaign—- becoming one of the first PR programs ever to have direct volume attributed to it. What did we learn? For every dollar spent on the program, Clorox saw an ROI of $2.
In other words, PR pays— and, in this case— saved lives.