Back in 2018, The Pink Stuff was just a household cleaning product with a cute name. All the containers had the words “miracle cleaning paste” written on them, but in the UK it was only sold by two retail chains. At the factory near Birmingham, the Pink Stuff Line operated for about two hours each month. That was enough.
“This was a brand with many uses,” said Henrik Pade, managing director of Star Brands, which developed the product. “But no one used it.”
In fact, The Pink Stuff — yes, Bubblegum Pink — had some fans. One of them was Sophie Hinchliffe, a 28-year-old hairdresser from Essex, about 30 miles east of London. Hinchliffe naturally found out about Pink Her Staff on Instagram, where she began posting daily videos to her then-new account, @mrshinchhome. All the videos were part of her constant campaign to liven up the house she and her husband had just moved into.
There, Mrs. Hinch (as she called herself) was scrubbing the bathroom grout with a toothbrush. Here she was polishing the candlestick. If there's a mess, The Pink Stuff will clean it up, she told the small but growing audience. Don't buy new tiles, she advised. Spend 99p to restore your old one. She also recommended other brands. The pink one was simply my favorite.
The 'Hinchards', as her followers quickly christened themselves, found it meditative and satisfying to watch a chatty, charming yet relatable woman stamp out grime. And these people weren't just watching. They wanted product tips from cleaning company managers.
By the time “hinching'' became a verb in Britain (defined as “to clean vigorously''), Pink Stuff's obscurity was over. At stores that carry this, I've found customers waiting for refill carts to pass by so they can get all the little tubs they need. that's all.
“I was like, 'Guys, what did you do?' We're not getting anything!” Hinchliffe said in a video interview. “Then The Pink Stuff contacted me and said, 'Can you send me something?'” And that's when I learned about the whole influencer world. ”
Hinchliffe, who has 4.8 million followers on Instagram, had never jumped onto TikTok — “I have a hard time staying on one platform,” she explained — but the・Pink Staff did that. According to Star Brands, Pink Stuff-related videos have been viewed more than 2 billion times on TikTok.
viral bump
Pink Stuff joins a hodgepodge of once-obscure products reshaped by the internet, especially TikTok. These include the Hoang Bagel Guillotine, the Stanley Tumbler, and the Carhartt Beanie, just to name three. However, the increase in sales achieved through online glory may be temporary. Just because a new product has hit the viral train is the Dash Mini Waffle Maker. — doesn't mean it will stay there.
Star Brands, which began tracking mentions of The Pink Stuff online a year and a half ago, says the hashtag is consistently viewed by about 20 million people each week. Revenue has quadrupled since 2018 to about $125 million a year, but that's modest compared to industry giants like Clorox, which has annual sales of more than $7 billion. . But at the company's headquarters in Leeds, no one thought this number would be possible a few years ago. The factory now has a workforce that has more than doubled and he has three pink staffs running his lines all day long. This product is currently sold in 55 countries and can be purchased at Walmart, Home Depot, and Amazon.
“We don't spend money on traditional advertising,” Pade said. “It's completely viral. This is a little scary because we have no control over the messaging around the brand.”
Marketing experts say that puts The Pink Stuff in a precarious position. When social media brings the wealth of a previously unknown product, it is at the mercy of forces that can be monitored but not controlled.
“The goal should be loyalty, not virality,” says Marina Cooley, professor of marketing practice at Emory University. “Virality is dangerous because it's fleeting and non-sticky. People get excited about the first interaction and look for the next viral thing.”
The original version of the Pink Stuff was released in 1931. It was as pink as it is today, but it had the distinctly unappealing name Bath and Household Cleaner and came in a gray glass bottle. By 1948 it was packaged in pink cans, but it wasn't until 1995 that the manufacturer adopted its current name and fully embraced the product's color. New owners will take over Star Brands in 2018 and hope to breathe new life into some cleaning products. They quickly hired the brand's first in-house social media guru, but the sales needle hardly moved until the Mrs. Hinch phenomenon began. The company did not contact her until long after she had gained her following. (They gave her free products but did not pay her for her endorsement.) It all happened by chance. “You can't plan for something to go viral,” Padé said.
Welcome to #CleanTok
As TikTok grew in popularity, Pink Stuff's hashtag became part of #CleanTok, videos that offer tips, tricks, and hacks for hygiene-conscious people. For several years, it has been one of the platform's most resilient niches. To date, #CleanTok videos have been viewed around 110 billion times worldwide, far more than #BeautyTok's 78 billion views, according to figures provided by TikTok to Unilever.
In a typical #CleanTok video, so-called “cleanfluencers” (some with over 1 million followers) use a specific cleaner and a specific brush to work on sinks, pots, and floors. . Usually there are before and after images, and these little vignettes are a cross between a commercial and an episode of “Law & Order.” It starts with confusion and ends with a verdict.
“People find it very therapeutic,” said Lori Williamson, a Toronto-based cleanfluencer whose video of cleaning a hair dryer recently received more than 1 million views. “Some people say it's motivating.”
Although she's not The Pink Stuff, she does work with 20 brands. She learned about it after Mrs Hinch introduced the product, but before Star Brands ramped up production in 2020 and acquired a North American distributor last year.
“It cost me $24 to get it,” Williamson said. “I was so upset.” (Currently on sale for $4.99 on Amazon and in about 30,000 stores worldwide.)
How well does the pink one work? Most #CleanTok videos are stories of triumph. The Pink Stuff conquers every surface in your bathroom and The Pink Stuff brings sneakers back. There are always people asking the same question in the comments section. “Does the pink thing have a name?”
There are also examples of Pink Stuff failures, such as pots with burnt stains. One woman warned that Pink Stuff did not repair scratches on her car and that it was not designed to repair.
Wirecutter, a consumer review site owned by The New York Times, tested “Pink Stuff” and concluded that it was good but overhyped.
Happy Endings
Hinchliffe started posting videos to relieve her anxiety and connect with people like her who are more comfortable staying at home than socializing with strangers.
“If you find yourself starting to get a little anxious or panicky for no reason, grab a mop, grab a Hoover towel, grab a cloth, just put on some music and… “I'm heading towards it,” she said. “And she realized that she was no longer focusing on what she was worried about.”
Her fame led to a call from Penguin Random House. Her debut book in 2019, Hinch Yourself Happy, became the first of a handful of books to earn her the number one spot on Sunday's Times bestseller list. That's what the brand calls it too. Ms Hinchliffe is currently working with Procter & Gamble to develop Mrs Hinch's version of cleaning products. Once a year, she visits the company's offices in Brussels to fine-tune her scents. Currently, she lives in her five-bedroom farmhouse with her husband and her children, dogs, chickens, and alpacas.
In the case of “The Pink Stuff,'' it's hard to predict a happy ending. Emory University's Professor Cooley said that while it was no longer dependent on Mrs Hinch, Star Brands had several initiatives ahead of it if the goal was to create a lasting product.
“I don't feel like there's an adult in this room leading a cult,” she said. “You need someone to work with influencers, work with retailers, and decide on the communication strategy.”
Four years ago, when Gen Z discovered Vaseline, Unilever developed several new versions of the 152-year-old petroleum jelly, such as Vaseline Glutahia, which they advertised as giving skin 10 times more “radiance,” she said. It pointed out. In other words, the company catered to a new demographic.
Star Brand's Pado says Pink Stuff engages with influencers, but there's no point in trying to control them. The design of the tub has been tweaked a bit, and he runs a four-person social media team to monitor hashtags and create internal posts. Otherwise, the Pink Stuff convoy will be self-driving. Pade said brand supporters can spot sponsored content from a mile away, but they don't like it.
“At some stage, interest will wane, as the popularity of cleaning is replaced by sex and drugs,” he predicted. “But when people hear about Pink Stuff through social media, they give it a try.”
audio producer Tully Abekasis.
