Cussons rejigs Carex with bathroom range

PZ Cussons is to overhaul its Carex soap brand strategy later this year by introducing a range of bathroom products.

The company is to relaunch the brand with a &£3m television, radio and print ad campaign devised by roster agency BDH/TBWA, which will see the brand promote separate bathroom and kitchen products for the first time.

Industry sources say consumers have been reluctant to buy the soap for the bathroom owing to the brand’s functional square design and marketing efforts that have focused on its effectiveness against “bad bacteria”.

Carex bathroom hand soaps will be packaged in more feminine and “softer shaped” bottles, according to one source, with new scents to be introduced such as passion fruit and bearberry and sea minerals.

The new ad campaign will drop the functional emphasis of the brand’s previous ads, which ran into controversy earlier this month when the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against the company for claiming that Carex could differentiate between “good” and “bad” bacteria (MW last week). The campaign used the strapline: “You can’t see the good and bad bacteria, let alone tell them apart. But thankfully, Carex can.”