SCJohnson is launching its largest-ever corporate-branding campaign (spending an estimated $20-30 million), created in collaboration with Energy BBDO, PHD, TracyLocke, Geometry Global and Edelman. The effort emphases SCJohnson’s status as “a family company” (currently in its fifth generation of family ownership) with efforts including its first corporate-brand broadcast ad in four years and a Thanksgiving giveaway that sees the company offering 3,000 free plane tickets to reunite families for the holiday.
The 60-second launch spot “Great Expectations” celebrates family and parenthood, opening with the line (attributed to S.C. Johnson), “What matters most is that we live up to the expectations of our children.” A voiceover drives home that message, over footage of happy families, for the remainder of the ad, with lines like “what we expect of you is less important than what you expect of us.” It ends with the tagline “Making life better for the next generation in ways only a family company can.” “Great Expectations” makes its broadcast debut today, with a Spanish-language version following on October 25. A Thanksgiving spot entitled “Through The Years,” likely promoting the aforementioned giveaway, makes its debut in cinemas on November 1 and on broadcast a week later.
“We know that when people know we’re a family company that their trust and purchase interest in our products always goes up,” SCJohnson CEO Fisk Johnson told AdAge. “We work hard at nurturing a culture of caring and doing the right thing for the long term. One of the reasons we’re able to do that is, as a private company, we don’t need to worry about next quarter’s earnings or what Wall Street analysts say or whether an activist is going to come after us.”