Pampers: Pooface
Pampers tasked Saatchi & Saatchi London with launching their Sensitive Wipes by shifting the focus from diaper dryness to the cleanup process. They needed to reach UK parents who were tired of idealized baby ads. The goal was to create a memorable, relatable campaign that positioned Pampers as a partner in handling the messy side of parenting, ultimately driving brand affinity and wipes sales.
Creative Idea
Filmed babies pooping in super-slow-motion set to an epic, cinematic space odyssey soundtrack.
Captured the intense, hilarious facial expressions of babies pooping in high-definition slow-motion to the dramatic score of 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra,' reframing the 'dreaded poonami' as a relatable, cinematic rite of passage that only Pampers wipes can handle.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Pampers possessed a market-leading wipes product and a reputation for understanding the messy realities of early development.
Category
Baby-care advertising typically relied on sanitized, sentimental imagery of perfect infants and clinical product demonstrations.
Customer
Parents felt overwhelmed by the 'poonami' and appreciated brands that acknowledged the unglamorous, funny truths of child-rearing.
Culture
The rise of 'real-parenting' social media content made audiences crave authentic, humorous depictions over idealized corporate perfection.
Company
Pampers possessed a market-leading wipes product and a reputation for understanding the messy realities of early development.
Category
Baby-care advertising typically relied on sanitized, sentimental imagery of perfect infants and clinical product demonstrations.
Strategy:
Humanize the brand by celebrating the unglamorous, messy realities that competitors traditionally ignore or sanitize.
Customer
Parents felt overwhelmed by the 'poonami' and appreciated brands that acknowledged the unglamorous, funny truths of child-rearing.
Culture
The rise of 'real-parenting' social media content made audiences crave authentic, humorous depictions over idealized corporate perfection.
Strategy:
Humanize the brand by celebrating the unglamorous, messy realities that competitors traditionally ignore or sanitize.
Strategy Technique
Make the Product the Punchline
"Pooface" uses babies' dramatic poop faces - the punchline - to grab attention and humorously normalize a messy reality. This positions Pampers wipes as the reliable solution for this universal, albeit funny, parenting challenge.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Use Another Category's cliché
It parodies the epic, high-stakes visual language of sci-fi cinema to elevate a mundane biological function, creating a humorous contrast that resonates deeply with parents.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
The ad's brilliance lies in its simple, relatable insight executed with cinematic grandeur. The juxtaposition of a mundane baby moment with epic music creates a memorable comedic effect.
The high-frame-rate slow motion captures every micro-expression, turning a common occurrence into a visual spectacle.
The use of Strauss's 'Also sprach Zarathustra' provides the perfect ironic contrast to the subject matter.
The synergy between the slow-motion visuals and the iconic, building score is what transforms the ad from a simple montage into a viral comedic piece.
A Cinematic Odyssey of the Dreaded Poonami
400 Frames of Pure Concentration
To capture the "pooface" in all its glory, director Olly Blackburn and cinematographer Nanu Segal utilized high-definition cameras shooting at 400 frames per second. This extreme slow-motion transformed fleeting, split-second grimaces into a "poop odyssey." The production cast 10 highly expressive babies, waiting patiently for the exact moment nature called to document every twitch and ripple of concentration. The choice of Blackburn - a director primarily known for gritty horror and thrillers like *Donkey Punch* - added a layer of professional irony to the project, as he applied the same technical precision used in suspense cinema to the "gross-but-cute" reality of a diaper blowout.
From Cryvertising to Poovertising
The campaign marked a seismic shift in the baby-care industry, moving away from "cryvertising" - the traditional use of sentimental, soft-focus imagery - toward a strategy dubbed "Don't Fear The Mess!" By leaning into the "dreaded poonami," a term UK parents use for major leaks, Pampers pivoted from focusing on dryness to the necessity of high-quality wipes. The ad became a global viral sensation, earning over 3.5 million views on a single YouTube upload and appearing on major US outlets like *The Today Show*.
Kubrick in the Nursery
The creative team at Saatchi & Saatchi London chose the iconic "Sunrise" from Richard Strauss’s "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" to score the mess. This deliberate nod to Stanley Kubrick’s *2001: A Space Odyssey* elevated the mundane act of defecation to a grand, operatic event. The industry impact was so immediate that the spot actually won its first accolades at Cannes Lions before it had even officially premiered on television, cementing its status as a masterclass in relatable, emotional storytelling.
