• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, January 12, 2016

Fresh on the heels of actress Jennifer Lawrence’s Golden Globes win for “Joy,” the real Joy Mangano is rolling out “Joy Meets Word,” an ad campaign meant to waltz her mops, steamers and hangers into the retail universe.

Mangano, who started with Miracle Mops, has been a Home Shopping Network fixture for decades. The new national ad campaign, created by Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners, heralds her distribution in such retailers as Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy’s, The Container Store, and Target. 

“The big mission here was that while Joy is famous on HSN, we needed to introduce her to the world beyond that,” says Steve Red, chief creative officer. And while Mangano’s core HSN audience is between 35 and 55, the new effort is also intended to appeal to a slightly younger crowd. 

The commercials make no reference to the movie itself, which chronicles Mangano’s rise from struggling single mom to mop magnate, and earned a “Best Picture” nomination at the Globes as well. But the campaign was timed to break with the award show, “and we are referencing it in our social media efforts, too,” he tells Marketing Daily.

He says the campaign, which stars choreographed crowds dancing with the innovative mops, steamers and hangers Mangano is best known for, was meant to “distill Joy’s infectious personality into, as much as possible.”

The idea was also to reflect some reality. Many of the performers aren’t model-thin, for example, nor are they even perfect dancers. “That was very intentional,” he says. “This isn’t mechanically synchronized. We wanted to cast the kinds of real people you see every day.”

Social and digital activations are running nationwide, and the TV spots are running in major markets, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. 

And for the next round of the campaign, RTO+P says it is introducing specific product spots.