Wet Ones Put Butt Cheeks on Your Hands and Called It a Comeback

Wet Ones, the hand-wipe brand owned by Edgewell Personal Care, is back with its first major campaign in years, and it is built entirely around a single visual gag: tight shots of fingers styled to look like backsides. The out-of-home push, "Just For Hands," created with agency BBH USA, hit New York City in October across LinkNYC kiosks, transit shelters, digital newsstands, wild postings, bus wraps, and a full Times Square takeover, backed by interactive walls handing out travel packs and individual wipes.

The insight came from brand-commissioned research finding that more than half of consumers admit to using hand wipes on an intimate area, a fact the creative team leaned into after testing less direct concepts, including peaches, before landing on the hand imagery itself. "We wanted to create a double take," said BBH USA executive creative director Yohan Daver, and the brand got an even bigger one for free: the MTA rejected the campaign's planned subway ads outright. "When they refused us for being a little too risque, it was perfect," said Nicole Harris, Edgewell's head of marketing for sun and skin, turning the rejection into its own earned-media moment.

The brand also tapped a "Summer House" reality personality for a stunt that landed on gossip account DeuxMoi, while rival flushable-wipes brand Goodwipes jumped into the conversation with its own playful social posts. For a wipe brand that had gone quiet for years, getting banned by a transit authority and roasted by a competitor in the same news cycle is, strategically speaking, a better outcome than the ad running as planned.

Source: Marketing Dive

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →