How making Body Odor a social problem launched the deodorant category and what Unilever is doing to make it impact-driven
Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived — Helen Keller
Deodorants. We all use them. We turn our nose up at those who don’t. If you have ever been on public transport in South Asia you’ll know the importance of deodorants. Picture this — it's 35 degrees Celcius, the sun is beating down on you, a room full of people wearing deodorant can make all the difference. Trust me!
I usually make little notes on a “master sheet” of ideas that I have on what to write. When I jotted this topic down I had no idea what my research would unearth.
For starters, the role of Edna Murphey. It’s a category creation story for the ages. Edna’s dad was a physician. And he’d developed this antiperspirant to help surgeons who have sweaty hands. Edna figured out that worked for underarms too. So she started marketing it as a product to women.
It was called Odorono (Odor-o-no). Nice play on words! But this was back in 1909. And such things as how women smelled wasn’t really discussed, publicly. Whilst I guess men were expected to smell bad.
Anyhoo. Sales weren’t great for Edna and Odorono. She went door-to-door. But not many would buy. But that changed in 1912. When Edna attended a summer exposition in Atlantic City. You guessed it the place was teeming with sweaty people.
A few years later, Edna hires a copywriter from J. Walter Thompson called James Webb Young. Her advertising focused on communicating that the product was healthy to use. Sales were still not skyrocketing. And Odorono was getting push back from the Journal of American Medical Association.
Then James Webb Young runs a survey to find out exactly why women weren’t buying Odorono. The conclusion — women didn’t think they needed it. The keyword here being NEED.
So Young creates a genius piece of advertising called Within the Curve of a Woman’s Arm — A frank discussion of a subject far too often avoided.
He turned sweating/body odor into a social problem. One that people will speak about behind your back and not tell you to your face.
Sales increased by 112% that year. Some women were pissed off at Edna. And Young’s ad became the playbook for the deodorant industry. In today’s category design terms — they focused on evangelizing the problem and created the future.
In doing so built the approximately $30 billion deodorant category.
Now what’s interesting is Edna was by no means the first. Mum was the first patented deodorant released in 1888 and the first antiperspirant was called Everdry (1903). What was different about Odorono? LANGUAGE.
As Christopher Lochhead posted recently:
Because, a demarcation point in language, creates a demarcation point in thinking, which creates a demarcation point in action.
Cut to almost 100 years later. Deodorants/antiperspirants are still associated with body odor. But there are also associated with causing air pollution and creating single-use plastic waste.
To make matters worse aluminum the core ingredient in antiperspirants was linked to breast cancer and Alzheimer’s.
- A study in 2018 published in Science found that petroleum-based deodorants emitted something called volatile organic compounds (VOC). These are also emitted by vehicles. VOC caused smog which in turn causes asthma and scar lung tissue
- A substance called triclosan is present in the deodorant causes problems for aquatic life
- Globally the personal care and beauty packaging industry makes about $25 billion, most of which is plastic packaging.
There are many brands that have since released zero-waste sustainable deodorants. Meow Meow Tweet, Ethique, Booda Organics, and more. But the sustainable deodorants weren’t able to capture a significant market share. Meanwhile, the overall deodorant market continues to grow. On track to reach USD 30.76 billion by 2026.
Unilever. A company that is synonymous with most FMCG products. With over 400 brands and the 4th largest FMCG company in the world.
According to the company website, over 2.5 billion people use Unilever products every day. This includes DOVE. The brand value of DOVE is 6,355m euros worldwide.
The DOVE brand includes soap, shampoo, and deodorants. DOVE advanced care is the 5th deodorant brand in the USA. Unilever recently launched a movement #TheBeautyRefillution, for DOVE deodorant.
The company consulted with A Plastic Planet to create a refillable deodorant. The casing is stainless steel with the DOVE logo engraved.
According to DOVE, this move will reduce virgin plastic waste by 30 tonnes. The refill packing is made with 98% recycled plastic. This will increase to 100% recycled plastic by 2023 and reduce virgin plastic waste by 160 tonnes.
Refills are aluminum and alcohol-free and “fit into” the stainless steel casing without any waste. Unilever is not the first brand to introduce this, but its the brand with the most reach. But the impact is going to be undeniable. Here’s what A Plastic Planet had to say:
It isn’t perfect yet, but it is a big step for the No 5 global polluter to try to reinvent a market where they own 50% share with 1 billion people using a Unilever deodorant.
It’s also the company’s first circular by design product.
My spidey senses are tingling. I believe this move by Unilever with cause a major impact-driven category violation or category violence as the Pirates call it.
About time too, the beauty industry is in need of a major overhaul. And when a big brand like Unilever looking to achieve 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 the impact is far-reaching.
The words of Unilever CEO, Alan Jope gives me hope.
Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment. We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle.
Our starting point has to be design, reducing the amount of plastic we use, and then making sure that what we do use increasingly comes from recycled sources. We are also committed to ensuring all our plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable.
This demands a fundamental rethink in our approach to our packaging and products. It requires us to introduce new and innovative packaging materials and scale up new business models, like re-use and re-fill formats, at an unprecedented speed and intensity.