Ecover: Laundry Research
The team’s research report, campaign idea and panel discussion has helped Ecover to foster a cultural conversation about the environmental impact of over washing clothes.
The campaign earned extensive media interest, including coverage in The Guardian. The Ecover campaign itself, was rolled out nationwide supported by out-of-home, social media and digital media executions.
Project details
| Project lead | Lucy Cokes |
|---|---|
| Centre alignment | TBC |
| Start date | 15 July 2024 |
| End date | 30 September 2024 |
The client commissioned academics from the Advertising Department at Falmouth University to carry out research on behalf of Ecover to understand our current culture of over washing laundry. Ecover wanted to shift the cultural conversation around laundry, to show how fewer washes reduces microplastics and other sources of water pollution, as well as, reducing water and energy usage.
The 14,000-word report tracks key moments in the historical evolution of laundry from the 1600’s to the present day, showing how ideas of cleanliness and laundry practices have adapted alongside changes in technologies, materials, and social norms. Laundry detergent advertising has also had a powerful influence on our laundering and section two detailed key themes from an analysis of 60 ads from the 1950’s to the present day. The final section examined efforts made by researchers to understand everyday laundry routines alongside the social and psychological drivers of over-washing.
In the context of a lack of progress in reducing the eco impacts of laundry, the final section asked what can be done to disrupt and re-shape our laundry habits. To address this challenge, a laundry attitudes and habits survey was designed, alongside three communications briefs aimed at addressing the social norms and cleanliness standards.
The resulting report was referenced in a media campaign and Dr Cui Su part of an expert panel at the launch of the ‘Capsule Collection’ at an event held in Shoreditch in September 2024. An idea in the report, to leverage existing use of ‘chair-drobes’, instead of automatically throwing clothes in the wash, became a key part of the Ecover campaign, with the iconic ‘re-wear chair’ being heralded as an ‘anti-waste icon’ alongside the tag line “Wear Over and Over, then Wash with Ecover”.
Project team
Lucy Cokes
Senior Lecturer, Creative Advertising
Lucy is a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University, School of Communications. She has been working in ...
Dr Cui Su
Head of Advertising
After her boss at Young & Rubicam told her 'you're the best account handler I've ever had but go...
Dr James Branch
Senior Lecturer, Design Strategy
James is a lecturer and researcher specialising in design education. He holds a doctorate from Lough...
Joel Ferguson
Course Leader, Creative Advertising
After studying multimedia design and branding, Joel began his career by starting the agency, OTA Dur...
Lucy was the main point of contact with the client and project managed the research and the contract. She conducted the search and social media research to uncover the link between new laundry products, the rise of germaphobia and the link to over washing. From self-observation she came up with the idea to promote the use of the ‘chair-drobe’ as a way of reducing over-washing. Ecover adopted this idea and ran with an OOH campaign with the image of a chair known as the ‘re-wear’ chair.
Cui reviewed literature about the cultural histories of cleanliness from the seventeenth centuries onwards, and wrote them up from the perspective of laundry. This discussion was also supported by fashion history and production. She also conducted a multimodal discourse analysis on a sample of 60 TV ads drawn from two archives, History of Advertising Trust (HAT) and the Laundry Lab on Youtube. The sample was coded and themes discussed provided socio-economic commentary about detergent advertising messages and showed how promotional communication drove demand for detergent products by leveraging social pressures and expectations on women.
James carried out a literature review to uncover the factors driving our resource intensive clothes washing practices. The review highlighted unwritten social rules around cleanliness that have ratcheted up washing frequency. The review also covered existing studies of everyday laundry habits, showing how laundry is interconnected with social roles, layout and materials of the home, and work schedules. Factors that have previously been overlooked in efforts to reduce the eco impact of laundering. Finally, James designed the UK wide survey that provided key insights and statistics that supported Ecover’s campaign.
Joel reviewed literature about the social media, influencers and content creators while working with Lucy to review search trends related to laundry. He conducted a multi discoursal analysis on a sample of TV, video and social advertising drawn from Laundry Lab on Youtube, Tiktok and Instagram. This identified trends and themes related to how brands have been, and continue, leveraging content creators and people of influence on digital social channels to influence consumers.
Partners
Funders
Outcomes & outputs
Launch Event on Thursday 26th September 2024 at a pop-up Charity Super.Mkt in Shoreditch.
Dr Cui Su sat on the panel alongside Lily Cole, Wayne Hemingway, (Co-founder of Charity Super.Mkt) and Anndrea Cheong (Author of Why Don’t I Have Anything To Wear?).
OOH Campaign
Impact & recognition
The team’s research report, campaign idea and panel discussion has helped Ecover to foster a cultural conversation about the environmental impact of over washing clothes. The campaign earned extensive media interest, including coverage in The Guardian. The Ecover campaign itself, was rolled out nationwide supported by out-of-home, social media and digital media executions.
Coverage:
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/21/uk-public-washing-their-clothes-too-often-says-major-laundry-brand
- https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/you-making-basic-error-how-29984704
- https://www.thehandbook.com/sustainable-fashion-popup-ecover/
- https://www.thedrum.com/news/2024/09/30/uncommon-and-ecover-debut-sustainable-rewear-chair-dutch-design-week
- https://lbbonline.com/news/ecover-turns-humble-laundry-chairs-into-stylish-sustainable-furniture
- https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2024/09/sniff-and-go-uncommon-and-ecover-ask-us-to-wear-more-wash-less/
- https://ddw.nl/en/programme/12564/the-rewear-chair
- https://www.charityretail.org.uk/ecover-and-lily-cole-partner-to-urge-brits-to-stop-over-washing-and-start-rewearing/
- https://www.famouscampaigns.com/2024/10/get-a-load-of-this-ecover-tackle-over-washing-with-the-rewear-chair/
- https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAqt2uVC8_V/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
Project media
