Less & More: The WFH Mom Edit

A closer look at the PR strategy behind a family of smiley little scrubs….

Welcome to The Deep Dive, a series from the PR pros behind The PR Edit. The right approach to PR can not only elevate brand awareness among a target audience but it can shape public perception and drive real results – be it sales, retail expansion, executive visibility, and/or overall improved company reputation. Molly and Sarah both have nearly 20 years in the business and are certified PR Nerds, always looking for brands and campaigns that really resonate and have a positive impact. The Deep Dive focuses on the campaigns, strategies, wins, and lessons from some of our favorite brands and agencies. So let’s dive in.

What do you call a bright yellow sponge with a smile for miles and 4.1 million followers on TikTok? You probably call him Daddy. And he’ll help you clean anything with a smile, right?

If you have been on any side of #Cleantok or read our roundup of our fave cleaning products, you have probably seen the soapy smile of a certain father of squeaky clean – Scrub Daddy. This brand is FUN. And you know what else is really fun? If you write the word “scrub” enough it will start to always look incorrect. Anyway, let’s dive into the sudsy water…

Skimming the Surface: A Quick Brand History

Less buff than the Brawny Man and more colorful than Mr. Clean, this family of scrubbers and cleaning pastes has used real elbow grease (and a noteworthy brand symbol) to gain major popularity. And the holiday shapes? Don’t get me started. So cute. So scrubby. With a product that is versatile, colorful, and affordable (not to mention long lasting!), it seems the Scrub Daddy team and founder Aaron Krause took a household staple and made it way more functional…and way more fun.

From the About Us section: “Aaron Krause was 37 years old and running an international manufacturing company. An average workday meant tending to paperwork in the front office while also repairing machinery in the back. Dirty hands were a constant annoyance, and over time, so became the only product available to clean them with (a slurry of rocks and lotion known as GOJO). Using his 14 years’ experience making urethane foam buffing pads, Aaron embarked on a mission to invent a more comfortable way to clean his hands.”

Diving In: PR Approach and Results

Leveraging Shark Tank success and blending both modern and traditional PR has definitely paid off for big Daddy. The company projected $340 million in revenue in 2024, reported 273 employees, and explored a potential IPO. Not too bad for a family of sponges from New Jersey! Scrub Daddy consistently expands its product line, leverages content creators in order to create powerful word-of-mouth, and finds itself in national media roundups regularly. So what do we think is helping bolster the overall PR strategy? Some key components…

Shark Tank Superstar: Over the years, I’ve worked with quite a few brands that have appeared on Shark Tank (like everyone’s favorite crustaceans-on-wheels Cousins Maine Lobster!) and when it comes to pitching the Sharks, you have to be ready to do media outreach whether The Big Kahuna buys in 100% or every shark boos you out of the room. Luckily, the spongy superstars didn’t have to worry about a reactive statement for negative media. In fact, Scrub Daddy is revered as one of the biggest Shark Tank successes and the PR team has managed to play into the Tank success without solely relying on it ten years later because the merit of the products on their own in order creates consumer and business buzz.

A Customer-Centric Approach: Scrub Daddy’s team is e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t at leaning into consumer demand when innovating new products. What started as one yellow sponge is now a product line that includes dozens of offerings from a fully scrubbed family (including mommy, daddy, pets, and more), mops n’ wands, cleaning solutions, and more. The R&D team uses customer data via social media feedback and customer service interactions in order to identify pain points to create better products and develop brand new ones. The team also analyzes sales data and repeat purchase information in order to identify what is working. It is clear the team is following popular cleaning hashtags and watching what cleaning solutions potential customers need – like the grill cleaning tool that offered an alternative to potentially dangerous metal grill brush bristles. Listening to customer feedback in order to solve problems? That’s clean living.

Consistent (Fun!) Product Innovation: At its core, Scrub Daddy’s team describes the product line as, “high-performance cleaning products by combining exclusive materials with fun, functional designs. Texture changing scrubbers, smell resistant sponges, scratch-free scour pads are just a few reasons we make you smile while you scrub! A highly engineered polymer foam proved to be the perfect solution.” That’s a mouthful and they keep it FUN. The Scrub Daddy team monitors competitors in line with the overall cleaning product market while keeping an eye on emerging trends to meet market needs and align with customer expectations. With almost every season and major holiday, consumers can find fun shaped scrubbers to keep things on theme. And the media? They seem to love it – just ask the shopping teams at SheFinds and Taste of Home. You can also see my sink ledge every holiday because I consider my holiday sponge to be part of my seasonal decor at this point.

Cleaning Up on Social: Scrub Daddy keeps it fun, right? That doesn’t stop at social. Their presence on TikTok is fun, funny, and engaging. The brand leans in to trends and consistently delivers on the overall playful brand persona. The social team also connects with followers in a personable way – making posts funny and light to create engagement and drive sales, instead of overtly pushing products. By reposting user-generated content (UGC), the Daddy team helps incentivize users to share their product experiences on socials with branded hashtags like #ScrubDaddy. Folks feel like they are a part of the family and the engagement and positive customer UGC helps amplify the brand in an authentic way.

Powerful Partnerships: You know I love a good brand partnership and, woo, Scrub Daddy goes for the gold. For National Doughnut Day in 2024, Dunkin and Scrub Daddy partnered to create the cutest donut sponges and the media ate it up. Not only did the products sell out, but the partnership resulted in major stories in Food & Wine, Inc., and AdAge. Dunkin and Scrub Daddy’s posts also racked up nearly 300,000 views on TikTok alone and according to Sprout Social, the sentiment surrounding these brands on X (formerly Twitter) was 98% positive. Sweet!

Real Retail Presence and Primed for Growth: Admittedly, I didn’t try Scrub Daddy at first because I couldn’t find it anywhere. But years later? You can find the spongy fam on Amazon, Target, local groceries, and nearly everywhere you look. The brand stays primed for growth with more retail expansion, new products on the horizon, and steady sales of co-branded products with Unilever.

Earning Media: As someone who is pitching something literally every single work day of the year, you know I’m going to talk about earned media. A quick Muckrack or Google News search of the brand populates tons of national media hits – it is impressive! From third party experts and editors mentioning Scrub Daddy products as their favorites in general cleaning stories to social media writers covering the brand’s TikTok partnerships to product round ups and brand news stories, there’s no shortage of Scrubby press. Need examples? I loved these Scrub Daddy features on Yahoo, Buzzfeed, Food & Wine, and Lifehacker.

The Buried Treasure (TL;DR): Takeaways & Why We Like It

I love Scrub Daddy’s social presence and overall PR strategy…and it doesn’t hurt that I think they have a genuinely great product and that people still refer to their “perfect” business pitch ten years later. The brand is fun, humble, and the actual durability of the product gives it great staying power.

Scrub Daddy keeps evolving and really keying in to what customers want in order to expand product offerings. The brand has created a cute, clean cult following by playing heavily in social, partnering with key content creators and big brands, listening to their customers, and expanding retail presence of their affordable product leaving no would-be clean freak with Daddy issues. 10/10 for the sponge king!

Now that you’ve cleaned up, are you looking for something a little multilingual? Check out our Deep Dive on Duolingo. Let us know – what brands would you love to see a Deep Dive on?

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