Watch the video above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Hello, everybody. Back again. Stephen, how are you, my friend?

Stephen Semple:
I’m doing well, man.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, and I did tell you, but I’m going to say that I’ve thought about it just because of the absurdity of what this ad was meant for and what it ended up becoming and the fact that it was such a good topic that you actually highlighted it. I think it was episode 101 of the Empire Builders podcast. You and Dave got to talk about this one. Just Poo-Pourri and the juxtaposition of a fine lady taking a dump.

Stephen Semple:
There’s no other way to play it.

Matthew Burns:
I can’t even sugarcoat it at all. Listen, this is a long video. I don’t know if we want to extend the whole thing or not. Maybe we’ll decide at the end. We’ll see how long we’ve talked. But I’m going to play you the video, at the very least a portion of it. And then we can talk about it. You’ve got some knowledge on this one. So let’s talk.

Ad:
You would not believe the mother lode I just dropped, and that’s how I like to keep it, leaving not a trace that I was ever here, let alone that I just birthed a creamy behemoth from my cavernous bowels. Nothing is worse than stinking up the shared toilet at work, or the toilet at a party, or your lover’s apartment. Of course, flushing removes the graphic evidence, maybe two or three flushes if your skid mark’s as tenacious as mine. But what can be done of that subtle scent of a 300-cow dairy farm? Aerosol air fresheners aren’t the most effective option, or the healthiest, trying to mask the stench, giving you a nice blend of chem lab carnations with just a touch of feces.

So how do you make the world believe your poop doesn’t stink, or in fact that you never poop at all? Poo-Pourri. Poo-Pourri is a before-you-go toilet spray that has been proven to trap embarrassing odors at the source and save relationships.

Simply spritz Poo-Pourri in the bowl to create a film on the water’s surface that actually traps the odors in their porcelain prison. And when your little astronauts splash down and make contact with the film, they release Poo-Pourri’s pleasant aromas, so all those around you can smell is a refreshing bouquet of essential oils.

Yes, it is a real product, and yes, it really works. We’ve sold over 4 million bottles. On Amazon alone, there are over 1000 reviews rating it 4.8 of five stars. That’s a better Amazon rating than the iPhone five. If it doesn’t completely stop your stench from spreading, send it back for a full refund. Our unconditional stink-free guarantee. If your poo stinks, click here to get your Poo-Pourri today at PooPourri.com.

So whether you need to pinch a loaf at work, cut a rope at a party, or lay a brick at your boyfriends, your days of embarrassing smells or prairie dogging it are over. Poo-Pourri. Our business is to make it smell like your business never even happened.


Matthew Burns:
Birth a creamy behemoth from my cavernous bowels. What?

Stephen Semple:
Driven and delivered very-

Matthew Burns:
Poshly.

Stephen Semple:
Poshly and very appropriately. And this is the power in this. The power in this campaign is the absurdity of it, but it’s this whole concept of fits, but does it fit? It’s an elegant woman, does she use the washroom? Can her poop stink? Yes, fits. But does it fit at the same time? Because in our minds, that’s really not supposed to go. And especially talking about it — using this very elegant elocution, a very elegant language to really talk about the stuff that there’s no elegance to it whatsoever. And that’s what makes it so much fun.

Matthew Burns:
But face it, Jackie Onassis never pooped. No, but you would never… You would think that that lady just floated around everywhere and she never pooped. Right? But guess what, I’m guaranteeing she dropped the log every once in a while.

Stephen Semple:
Yes, she did. Yeah. Look, it was a brilliant campaign created by the Harmon brothers. The Harmon brothers have a fabulous track record of creating online campaigns. And I had the opportunity to meet David Harmon one time, and there’s an absolute formula that they follow in the stuff. Absolutely, absolutely works. But I’m always going to say, here’s the interesting thing. This is a customer who was not afraid to do things like that. Before she became a customer of the Harmon brothers, she actually would do trade shows and would take what she would do to stand out. She would take a toilet bowl into the trade shows and fill it overflowing with lemons.

Matthew Burns:
Oh wow.

Stephen Semple:
Right? So like Susie Bates, she was someone who was prepared to be bold. And the mistake somebody could make on a campaign like this, here’s where the mistake happens. And I’ve had this happen with customers where we’ve had to have this conversation with them. They want to tone it down like, well, does she really need to be sitting in the toilet in the office? You don’t really sit in the toilet in the office. When you tone it down, it actually doesn’t work. Everyone knows it’s not real. And the more ridiculous you make it, the more they know it’s not real.

Matthew Burns:
Right. You wrote an amazing script for Kreos Aviation that leaned heavily into the fact that you have to be a little absurd, where they’re an aviation company that within the first 15 seconds of the ad that you wrote and we created, I was on the creation team, we crashed a plane. It’s Kreos Aviation. They crashed a plane. They allowed us to write a script where we crash a plane in the first 15 seconds of the ad, and then we go on to have sword fights in terminals-

Stephen Semple:
That’s carnage in airports.

Matthew Burns:
Right? And they let us really, really take it to that level and that bravery of a client. We’ve said this I think in almost every episode where we talk about the fact that clients that are brave and are willing to push the limit a little bit usually succeed. The ones that are that tentative, a little bit nervous to really be bold and stand out, we don’t see them go as far, unfortunately.

Stephen Semple:
So if we actually take a look, if somebody watches the entire video, what you see is there’s heavy entertainment. Entertainment uses kind of this unexpected-fits-but-doesn’t-fit type positioning. That’s kind of what they use. This shocking, elegant woman, an elegant petite English woman with perfect elocution, which then allows them… And they do get serious about the product, where they educate how the product works only after they’ve entertained.

We’ve often talked about this, entertainment is a currency that you can buy people’s time and attention. I entertain you. I can now talk a little bit about the product and the reviews where you can buy it, how many we’ve sold, and all the other stuff. They started with that, no one would care. In fact, I’ve kind of listened to this, this is kind of interesting. Okay, tell me more. Right? It literally buys that right to talk about it. And they’ve created a huge number of many-hundred-million-dollar businesses based on this type of advertising.

Matthew Burns:
And that’s what I was going to get to, is they’ve got one around Christmas. They’ve got one with Santa Claus pooping on the toilet, right? Yeah. The kids wake up, not because the presents are there, it’s because it smells in the house. But again, and they did one, I think the most recent one is that they have sleep away camp for kids.

And they’ve duplicated this. It’s weird to talk about, but yet it happens. So too bad we’re talking about it, and we’re just going to lean heavily into it and be a little bit absurd. Go all the way into the joke so that you know that the really strange parts aren’t real but they’re funny so that you can believe that. And then you take away those little points that they want from every ad. And they’ve done, I don’t know, a dozen or more than that, I think maybe 15 ads. And they’re all two-and-a-half-minute ads. They’re all very, long, long format.

Stephen Semple:
They’re long. There’s always this debate, this debate in direct mail, this debate in video. Should it be longer? Should it be shorter? Everybody’s arguing, oh, they should be shorter because people’s attention span is shorter. No, it should be shorter because most of the time it’s crap.

Matthew Burns:
That’s it.

Stephen Semple:
Right?

Matthew Burns:
That’s it.

Stephen Semple:
Longer is better when you do it well because you now hold the person’s time and attention for two and a half minutes. But you have to do it well. It’s not that their attention span is shorter. It’s like, why am I listening to this crap? Click. Onto the next thing. I don’t have to sit around. I don’t have to wait. So the Harmon brothers have created, as I said, a phenomenal campaign, but the part that made it work, it’s this weird juxtaposition that just makes you have to watch.

Matthew Burns:
Fits but doesn’t fit. So we’re going to stop being potty humor guys at this point and just say, listen, if you like what we’re doing here and we’re bringing your attention to some techniques and tricks used by massive brands to create just amazing advertising, subscribe, like the thing. Tell your friends, your aunt and your uncle, whoever wants to listen, and we’ll be back.

Latest posts by Sticky Sales Stories (see all)