Live sports stays a reliable and growing marketplace for advertiser spend — to the tune of about $61 billion in 2024 — as brands look to get in front of consumer eyeballs. But with big brands dominating ad spend for major sports leagues just like the NFL and NBA, smaller brands are forced to achieve farther afield to search out dedicated sports fan bases, an approach personal care brand Dude Wipes scores high in.
In the previous couple of years, Dude Wipes has sponsored each a NASCAR race and a match at WWE’s WrestleMania. The brand in January became an official partner of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) and went viral last month with pin sweepers that carried “clears as a substitute of smears” messaging. Before that, the brand caught the eye of hockey fans with messaging on dasher boards on the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off that punned off hockey terms with bathroom jokes (“protect your crease”).
Dude Wipes put brand messaging on the pin sweepers at PBA events.
Permission granted by Dude Wipes
“Perry Ellis just did a logo slap, and nothing against them, that is their thing. They have quite a bit more cash to spend than me, so I want to face out more,” said Dude Wipes Co-founder and CMO Ryan Meegan of the NHL ads, a few of which aired during a championship game viewed by 10 million people. “We were really lucky along the technique to press the correct buttons at the correct time, and we’re at all times looking to do this.”
Pressing the correct marketing buttons — often by counting on toilet humor-fueled virality — has been crucial for the CPG disruptor. Launched in 2012 by three college graduates who used to purchase baby wipes in bulk from Sam’s Club, Dude Wipes scored a “Shark Tank” investment in 2015 and now sees $200 million in annual sales.
Marketing Dive spoke with Meegan in regards to the brand’s “secret sauce” to going viral, how its approach to creative and media have evolved as the brand has grown and the way the brand is experimenting with CTV ads via Amazon.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARKETING DIVE: Has Dude Wipes’ brand positioning evolved as the brand has grown?
RYAN MEEGAN: Loads of our original mindset and strategy has not modified a ton. From the outset, we figured if we will be convincing people to wipe their butts otherwise and talking about one of the crucial secretive, most taboo parts of the body, we would have liked to be funny and authentic. This is not something that might be talked about seriously or created in a boardroom with a bunch of suits.
When we dove into making the brand and doing marketing we just stuck with funny bathroom humor. We consider Dude Wipes as just one other friend within the room of a bunch of friends congregating and talking bluntly and brashly. We found regardless of how young or old, bathroom joke strikes everybody the identical way.
What elements of the marketing have modified?
What now we have found with growing budgets and growing sandboxes where we are able to play is there are particular areas where we’d like to tone it down a bit of bit more versus where we are able to still be our super blunt selves.
Examples of that might be linear TV. We just began our first mass media campaign in 2024, and quickly, networks were like, “Yeah, you may’t do this. You cannot say that.” So it’s really been a fun but frustrating learning experience in that regard, a bit of little bit of growing pains, of finding that completely satisfied medium for the linear mass-media spectrum. How will we still be ourselves and get our humor and authenticity across, but not cross any lines, and get to a degree where they’re comfortable airing our content. But we still can have a good time on social media. We still have a good time with our content creators and short-form digital.
How would you characterize the brand’s approach to searching for viral, earned media?
We love “news jacking,” in the event you will. We all have access to way an excessive amount of details about one another and in regards to the world, and there is some poop-related incident occurring every day or not less than weekly. We jump throughout those things as quickly as we are able to, send out care packages to those people, attempt to drum up some earned media, and at all times attempt to be a relevant and consistent a part of on a regular basis conversation. In a more planned or semi-planned way, we search for areas where we are able to do lightning strikes, like popping into UFC or the Preakness [horse race].
That grittiness and people one-off lightning strikes won’t ever change. We’re at all times in search of those, and may’t wait for the following one, whatever that could be. It’s a combination of staying true to our roots with that scrappy stuff and [having] more consistent mass media that we now have the budgeting to do to hit tens of millions of individuals and create consistent awareness on a year-round basis.
Part of our secret sauce is that folks are going to discuss us, and the “dudeness” is the magic. We try to take care of that magic and that connection with people, and make people laugh, get them interested in who we’re and ultimately convert. But I’m at all times looking out with my team for those opportunities that pique our interest and are right up our alley, [so] we are able to drum up some noise. Instead of just spending a couple of promoting dollars to create a couple of impressions, we wish to get ten times the impressions.
How has the media mix modified as your retail presence has grown?
We have a healthy trade budget that is a part of our overall marketing budget, and that goes to support our big retail partners Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kroger and Instacart. We play ball for those retailers.
In terms of media, there’s a very interesting dynamic occurring right away with linear versus streaming and programmatic, connected TV. We’re running a fairly sizable test right away with Amazon, serving their connected TV and streaming TV audiences through Prime and other avenues. It’s higher CPM, but now we have a bit of more control over who the content is served to. Then we’re also going to get some consumer reporting on the back end as well, and find a way to see some conversion rates, whereas linear, obviously, is type of a giant black hole.
We’re also kicking off an enormous podcast blitz, spending multiple seven figures for the primary time within the lifetime of the corporate. We feel really strongly about aligning with different podcast hosts which are very trusted by their listeners. That’s where people as of late are selecting to eat their content.
Linear is at all times going to play its part for the low CPM and the mass reach, and we’re invested heavily in it. There’s little question. But there’s some ancillary dollars that we’re playing with in these other spaces, simply to see if the engagement is a bit of bit higher.
What do you see in the buyer demographics of a brand that has made the word “dude” central to the corporate?
We landed on the name Dude Wipes since it’s a contagious word in American vernacular. We began this, as guys, to enlighten guys that you have to be cleaner and more hygienic. We knew that girls would appreciate it as well. We weren’t dumbfounded but very surprised to see some stats a pair years ago, and it’s continued to be consistent, that our users are literally 50% women, 50% men. We think that girls are buying them for the household. I believe it goes back to the fun nature of our brand, that now we have not turned them off, and so they think it’s funny and funky too. Women are on board with it as well.
In terms of pleasing everybody, it’s never going to occur in the event you attempt to be every little thing to everybody and nothing to no person. We really are unapologetically ourselves. We know there’s going to be haters on the market. There are going to be those that think it’s silly, or we have been on these “unnecessarily gendered products” lists and it really doesn’t trouble us. We’re at all times going to have those naysayers, which is effective with us.
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