Macleans focuses on emotions

Macleans, the GlaxoSmithKline-owned oral hygiene brand, claims it is challenging the “conventions” of toothpaste advertising with a £5m campaign evoking an emotional, romantic theme rather than a scientific approach.

The campaign, created by M&C Saatchi, features the chance encounter of a man and woman in the street and retraces her day back to the moment she brushed with Macleans. It breaks in cinemas on Boxing Day, and will roll-out across TV and press in January. MediaCom handles the media planning and buying.

It aims to have a more emotive positioning, based on “being ready” for unexpected romantic encounters. Macleans says that until now the toothpaste category has a shallow, rationally-based relationship with consumers based around “experts in white coats”.