• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, August 28, 2006

Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, especially when it comes to those 100 oz. bottles of laundry detergent. The only thing they ever gave me was a well-developed bicep in college. All laundry detergent, owned by Unilever, developed a product called small & mighty to combat this very issue. The product is packaged in a small bottle, but is triple concentrated, meaning it cleans as much clothing as a 100 oz. bottle.

So how to increase sales and brand awareness on this petite product? Hire Goliath as your promoter.

"We were looking for a fun way to introduce the sleek, stylish and space-saving small & mighty to New Yorkers who are used to carrying giant detergent bottles to the laundromat," explains Helayna Minsk, Unilever's laundry marketing director, U.S. All pitched the concept of having two charter buses drive around the streets of New York covered in actual clothing, according to FreeCar Media, the company behind the initiative.

The buses drove eight hours a day for twelve straight days in May (15-26), coinciding with Fleet Week. Hey, it can't be easy for sailors to keep their uniforms crisp and white, right?

Brand ambassadors distributed brochures containing All coupons to consumers throughout the city (South Street Seaport, Chelsea Piers, even the USS Intrepid could not escape the power of All) from a bus completely covered in clothes (t-shirts, jerseys, boxers) save for a billboard on each side asking consumers, "how much can one small bottle clean?" A busload of clothes, apparently.

The campaign was successful: more than 78,000 coupons were distributed and 4.4 million impressions were served, measured using the same methodology the traffic audit bureau uses to measure outdoor ads.

But how did New Yorkers initially react? They tried to steal the clothes.

Fortunately, FreeCar Media took this into consideration prior to the stunt.

Drew Livingston, Chief Ideation Officer at FreeCar Media, said the company first wrapped the buses in vinyl, then adhesive, and then added the clothes. The adhesive was tested in inclement weather to ensure the clothes adhered, regardless of weather conditions.

Did they ever. And the clothes felt, well, like clothes, despite the adhesive holding them up.

In addition to the buses, a Web site and sweepstakes were created (spotthebus.com) encouraging users to text the location, time they saw the bus, and a picture of the bus to automatically enter a drawing to win a shopping spree.