Huge rest room paper manufacturers typically keep away from potty humor, however their newest challengers are embracing it.
In three separate adverts for PlantPaper, celebrities perch on rest room seats. Alicia Silverstone, Stephen Dorff and a breastfeeding Rumer Willis converse concerning the firm’s “one hundred pc toxin free” bamboo rest room paper. “I do know a factor or two a few–holes,” Dorff says. The actors warn of most cancers and different well being dangers from chemical substances detected in some mainstream rest room paper.
PlantPaper, Potty Mouth, Who Offers a Crap and different younger companies counter the soft-focus messaging of Charmin, Cottonelle and AngelSoft. They reject the cherubs, cartoon bears and different mascots that Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Georgia-Pacific have deployed for many years.
As a substitute, the startups promote bamboo rest room paper through social media adverts laced with bleeps and irony. The irreverence isn’t new. Seventh Technology ran a unusual but G-rated spot in 2019 for recycled TP starring comic Maya Rudolph crooning to “Mike the Tree.” Nevertheless, the brand new entrants mark a shift from the previous “save the timber” pitch.
“We’re speaking about one thing that’s each inherently humorous and inherently jarring,” mentioned PlantPaper Co-founder and CEO Lee Reitelman. “After years of seeing rest room paper adverts that appear like their target market is 5- to 8-year-olds, I feel it’s thrilling for folks to see one thing very completely different.”
The corporate’s Fb, Instagram and YouTube adverts have attracted thousands and thousands of views. PlantPaper is worthwhile, pulling in almost 40,000 orders every month. Its doorstep deliveries rely 85,000 subscribers. The self-funded Brooklyn firm makes use of three-ply bamboo sourced from China, licensed by the Forest Stewardship Council. Reitelman and partner Deeva Inexperienced have grown the group to just about 10 since promoting their first rolls in 2019.
‘Impression-native’ manufacturers
“Consciousness of the environmental influence of merchandise has elevated considerably, permitting manufacturers to skip lectures about local weather change in favor of truly speaking to folks in surprising methods,” mentioned Luke Purdy, director of sustainability at advert company Wieden + Kennedy of Portland, Oregon. “To be related, you might want to ship on themes that really matter to folks and provides them a cause to care.”
Humor is a pure match for “impact-native” manufacturers, he added.
“Eco-friendly” rest room paper will develop from lower than $1 billion in gross sales this 12 months to $1.25 billion in 2033, in line with Market Studies World. Bamboo‑primarily based rest room papers make up 12 % of these gross sales. That’s a tiny share of the $41 billion rest room paper market, but 68 % of patrons present a desire for recycled or bamboo choices, a report from International Progress Insights exhibits.
“One of the simplest ways to promote sustainability is to assume selfishly — to know why folks purchase your merchandise after which use sustainability claims to strengthen, not change, these causes,” mentioned Jamie Hamill, consulting director at Ogilvy in New York Metropolis.
Examine that with the “innovation jargon” of P&G, famous Joe MacLeod, communications veteran and founding father of AndEnd Consulting.
“This isn’t the language of commonality of people of their most intimate act,” he mentioned. “I’m wiping my bum with rest room paper. It’s comedy gold. Let’s bond over the humorous stuff, after which we are able to change the world collectively.”
Simon Griffiths, the CEO and co-founder of the 13-year-old rest room paper model Who Offers a Crap, sat on a rest room for 50 hours to crowdfund the startup.
The most recent entry, Potty Mouth, launched two months in the past after two years of analysis and improvement. Founder Luca Aldag, a humorist, posted his first TikTok video that praised going to the lavatory as an escape, reeling in 1.5 million views. One other Instagram put up had 3 million views. He timed the primary bulk buy from China throughout a pause on U.S. tariffs. He and his greatest pal/co-founder unloaded the primary 3,000 packing containers in Oakland.
Aldag sells the product as “good on your butt, good for the planet and good for amusing.” It’s additionally wrapped in paper, not plastic.
The well being angle
“These adverts are positively working to faucet into fears round chemical content material, and I’ll guess it’s working,” mentioned ERM Shelton Communications Senior Associate Suzanne Shelton. “We’ve additionally lengthy seen what anyone who has ever watched a Tremendous Bowl advert is aware of — humor works!”
PlantPaper often conducts third-party checks for without end chemical substances, heavy metals, natural chlorine and sure plasticizer chemical substances.
In 2023, researchers blamed rest room paper for as much as 4 % of U.S. and Canadian wastewater compounds that may turn into “without end chemical substances” resembling per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The chemical substances appeared to slide in, unplanned, via manufacturing or packaging, or via recycled pulp. (In contrast to with rest room paper, nonetheless, without end chemical substances are typically deliberately added to diapers and tissues.)
To chop poisonous dioxin releases, manufacturers now bleach TP with chlorine dioxide fairly than elemental chlorine. Some use formaldehyde to extend wet-strength however public information is proscribed.
Watchdogs
PlantPaper obtained a B+ and Who Offers A Crap a B grade in the Pure Assets Protection Council’s 2024 “Problem with Tissue” rankings. Charmin, Amazon Fundamentals and Angel Comfortable flunked. (Recycled-paper choices from Aria, Complete Meals 365 and Dealer Joe’s earned A+.)
“Rest room paper corporations that really prioritize well being and environmental sustainability show it not solely via PFAS testing and disclosure insurance policies but additionally via their fiber sourcing,” mentioned Ashley Jordan, NRDC’s boreal company marketing campaign advocate.
Just like the startups, shopper watchdogs are additionally wielding humor. As P&G faces a greenwashing lawsuit over Charmin, it’s additionally the goal of a brief, joke-laced documentary that Texan Brian Rodgers has produced, accusing the company of clearcutting old-growth forests.
“You’d higher change as a result of there’s a paradigm shift,” he mentioned. “The youthful technology is gonna be extra energetic and extra offended as our world modifications.”
PlantPaper’s messaging is supposed to attach human and environmental well being, in line with Reitelman. “Ecology shouldn’t be one thing that’s occurring in a pond or a forest,” he mentioned. “Ecology is what’s occurring if you flush this or that factor down your rest room.”
