Rebellion starts in the laundry room.
AAF NSAC 2024
Roles: Research, Production, Narrative Development. Date: April 2024
In collaboration with Moira Sirois and Trey O’Shea.
How do you get Gen Z to wash on cold?
Truth
Tide is engineered specifically for cold water.
Problem
Gen Z and most consumers are still washing on warm or hot. Despite Gen Z’s environmental values, they avoid cold cycles out of fear their clothes won’t smell or look clean. Myths about cold-water cleaning persist, leaving a product built for cold stuck in a world still boiling its socks during the laundry process.
Opportunity
Reframe cold as the cooler choice.
It’s the smart, modern, “I get it” way to wash.
Where to next?
Researched Gen Z laundry attitudes, cold-water myths, and Tide’s unique cold-optimized formula
Performed social listening to determine how Gen Z talks about sustainability and laundry habits online.
Surveyed consumers in the 18–25 range to gauge beliefs about openness to behavior change.
Interviewed Gen Z shoppers across 3 locations to uncover motivations, barriers, and laundry decision-making.
Key Questions
How do you balance spending vs. saving?
How often do you impulse shop and regret it?
What drives your in-store decision-making?
What makes you choose warm vs. cold water?
How confident do you feel in the cleaning power of cold
What sources (social media, peers, brands) influence your laundry habits?
What we found
Gen Z lives fast
They’re driven by immediacy: fast shipping, fast fashion, fast content.
But friction is building
Overconsumption is catching up. They see the waste, feel the guilt, and want better, even as they scroll videos.
They’re frugal, but emotional
Deals are great but they’ll splurge for meaning, story, or identity. A good TikTok pitch? That's worth it.
They question everything.
Except laundry.
They’re skeptical of brands, critical of messaging, and aware of their power as consumers. They’ve started breaking the rules across every category, rewriting how it’s all supposed to be done.
They’ve rethought food, fashion, mental health, even sleep. But laundry is a legacy habit no one’s redefined yet.
The Insight
Freedom begins when you
start breaking the rules.
Gen Z loves low-effort, high-impact lifestyle shifts, but no one has given them permission to break the “warm wash” rule.
The Strategy
Position Tide as the brand that matches Gen Z’s stance on being aware of and acting on the necessary changes needed to create a better world through the power of cold wash.
Creative Concept
That’s The Cold Truth.
A fully integrated, multi-tiered campaign designed to spark awareness and long-term behavior change around the benefits of washing cold.
Why it works
Behavior change made cool
We gave Gen Z permission to challenge the status quo in a place they hadn’t thought to.
Cultural fluency
The messaging tapped into social language, spending psychology, and emotional guilt around overconsumption.
Creative executions with shareability
Video spots were crafted to live natively in social.
Strong brand reinforcement
Tide is the tool that made change possible.
My roles across the work
Research
Mapped Gen Z’s cultural, behavioral, and emotional landscape.
Uncovered myths around cold-water cleaning and laundry identity.
Turned data into insights for creative teams.
Production
Produced digital & social-first campaign spots.
Managed location shoots, casting, and crews.
Oversaw post-production and tone consistency.
Narrative Development
Crafted the story that tied research to creative.
Shaped how the work lived in the final deck.
Co-led the pitch to judges.
Awards & Recognition
Gold Rammy
TV/Video