Morton Salt Pool Salt - Aqualillies

Morton Salt (Pool Salt) - Get Back to Swimming featuring the Aqualillies

Get back to swimming...

Despite taking enormous pride in owning a saltwater pool, many owners are not confident enough to maintain it for fear of “messing it up.” Instead, they outsource to and rely on “the pool guy” or confer with “pool experts” at specialty stores to ensure their saltwater poo provides the premium experience they desire and have paid for. Given this behavior, consumers were not seeking out premium pool products in the places where they regularly shop – such as Lowe’s and Home Depot – two places where Morton is stocked. Morton, therefore, needed to position itself as the expert in pool care/salt for saltwater pool owners that could provide the premium experience consumers desire whenever they are maintaining their pool.

Idea

Enlist the world-renowned Aqualillies dressed as Morton brand Synchronize Swimmers to do the work for us. Utilizing our crucial brand assets of the girl, her umbrella, and our vibrant color palette, we dressed them as Morton-branded synchronized swimmers. Through their performance of synchro, we communicated the benefits of the new product like softer hair, softer eyes, and more time swimming due to our faster-dissolving salt. The video served as a stunning benefit visualization for the development. It blew engagement benchmarks out of the water, personifying why we’re the premium choice that performs while blowing engagement and brand lift benchmarks out of the water.

A complimentary shopper program also trained in-store associates about the benefits of Professional’s Choice, enabling them to act as advocates on our behalf. Additionally, we put our product in the hands of our consumers to allow them to see the primary benefit of our product – fine-grade salt for quicker dissolving – which ultimately will enable them to get back to swimming quicker; the goal for a family looking to enjoy their pool... To do so, Morton created a bold and engaging digital video featuring synchronized swimmers to make consumers aware of their Professional’s Choice Pool Salt, personify the premium qualities of the product (product visualization), and showcase that Morton understands could provide the exceptional lifestyle of salt water pool ownership.
The result?

6.1MM video views and 35.3MM impressions (12.4MM via social). On average users watched 82% of video content
Despite the introduction of a cheaper competitor into the category that has rocketed to a 25% market share (Clorox), Morton saw a 285% increase in sales YOY in DIY channels.
Youtube Brand Lift Study: 16% uplift in brand favorabiliy: 18% increase in purchase intent.
Walmart loved the video so much, they asked if they could run it on their in-store screens for free - despite not stocking the premium product featured!!
Sources: Morton Sales Data, Youtube Brand Lift Study

Additional content created for the website:

Credits: Janna Reddig - Strategy Director; Max Arevou - Planner; Sterling - Creative Lead (Ogilvy); Ron Kurian - Media Lead; Paige Robinson Account Lead.