The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
Cashmere UltraLuxe's Bathroom Guide crowns Canada's best restaurant washrooms — sales +21%
A premium toilet-paper brand rates restaurant washrooms in a Michelin-style guide with plaques in winners — sales rose 21%
Cashmere UltraLuxe (Kruger Products)
What it had to solve
Kruger's premium Cashmere UltraLuxe competed in a category where every rival advertised softness, in a product shoppers bought with little thought. Lifelong Crush noticed a real behaviour shift: diners were already touring, photographing and rating restaurant washrooms, but with no accepted standard — so nobody could own the conversation.
How it works
In 2024 Cashmere UltraLuxe, Kruger Products' premium bathroom tissue, was fighting in a category where every rival advertised the same thing — softness — in a product most shoppers bought on autopilot. Agency Lifelong Crush instead noticed a real behaviour shift: people were touring, photographing and rating restaurant washrooms on their own, but with no agreed standard to anchor the conversation.
The answer was the Cashmere UltraLuxe Bathroom Guide, the first ranking of Canada's top restaurant bathrooms, using a Michelin-style system that awarded one to three 'Fleurs' — the fleur drawn from the tissue's own embossed pattern. Winning washrooms received permanent plaques, and the brand backed the list with PR, creator content, digital spots and a nomination engine that let the public crown their favourite rooms.
The product was built into the idea: UltraLuxe tissue placed beside washroom sinks worked as an ongoing advertisement and a live demonstration. Reported results include a 21% rise in dollar sales and 18% growth in tonnage for UltraLuxe, a 3,900% spike in social mentions, and restaurants proudly displaying their plaques while diners sought out three-Fleur experiences.
Why it lands
- Instead of asserting softness, the brand did something publishable: a first-ever ranking that newsrooms and diners wanted to argue about.
- The permanent plaque turned each winning restaurant into an ongoing medium for the brand, long after the media push ended.
- Placing the product in washrooms made the tissue its own demonstration — function shown exactly where the ranking happens.
- The Fleur mark was ownable: borrowed from the tissue's embossing, so any future rating in any city builds the brand's standard rather than a generic list.
What it did
Effie Canada records a 21% lift in dollar sales; the team also reported 18% tonnage growth and a 3,900% spike in social mentions, with restaurants proudly displaying their plaques and diners seeking out three-Fleur washrooms. The campaign won the 2025 Effie Canada Gold in Marketing Disruptors and Silver in Household Supplies, and opened away-from-home channels such as hotels and restaurants for the brand.
What you can take
Give a low-interest product a standard people actually care about: when the brand invents the ranking, every rated washroom becomes a permanent ad and the plaque outlives the campaign.
Since then
Plaques stayed in the winning washrooms and restaurants kept advertising their Fleur status, turning the guide into an owned standard that Lifelong Crush says can scale city by city. For Kruger it opened away-from-home channels such as hotels and restaurants and traded buyers up from competing premium brands. Effie Canada named the work Gold in Marketing Disruptors and Silver in Household Supplies in October 2025, and the ICA and LBB featured it as one of the year's three Gold case studies.
Sources
- Effie Awards Canada Announces 2025 Grand and Gold Winners, Marketer and Agency of the Year
- Canadians Create, Episode 12: Lifelong Crush and Kruger Products' Gold Effie Success
- How Cashmere UltraLuxe Became the Authority on Bathroom Luxury (Effie Gold)
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