The truth behind Cushelle
I have the greatest respect for marketers in the toiletries space. They’ve just a hard product to market (although I'm sure Cushelle is very soft). How do you make something like Cushelle into a "must have" product? How is it different from any other good quality loo roll?
Cushelle (that what was once Charmin) hasn’t advertised on TV since SCA bought the brand from P&G.
Brand Republic has the news that Cushelle will relaunch with a £100,000 marketing campaign. From a digital point of view; the very fact I’m able to blog about the brand name before there’s a digital presence means that the Cushelle team will now have a race on their hands.
There is a Cushelle.com domain. It’s owned by SCA and points at their site – there is a Cushelle site but the standard SCA homepage. The Twitter name isn’t taken (at the time of writing; 3, 2, 1... now check) nor the Facebook vanity URL.
What do you think? Is it almost impossible to line up all your ducks before a re-branding these days or is it still worth trying?
Update: Why is Charmin called Cushelle?
This blog page is beginning to get traffic from people searching for [why is Charmin called Cushelle] and [where is Charmin called Cushelle?]
I think people are searching for "where" because we're used to UK brands being brought in sync with American product names or even mainland European names.
That leaves the question; why? Why is Charmin now called Cushelle?
The short answer is - money.
SCA, who now own Cushelle, already changed Bounty to Plenty and they say that helped grow the product's marketshare ie; more people bought Plenty than Bounty. SCA will be trying the same trick again, changing Charmin to Cushelle to make it easier to sell, to make it a more memorable name... but it's a risk, isn't it?
What do you think? Was this a wise idea?
