The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2019
Glade stuffs Walmart shipping pillows with scent — 'Scent by Glade' wins Effie Gold 2020
Glade filled the air pillows in Walmart online orders with fragrance — pop to sniff, scan to buy; 83% Walmart.com sales lift, Effie Gold 2020.
Glade (SC Johnson)
What it had to solve
Glade wanted more people to try its air fresheners, but as shopping moved online, fewer customers walked past in-store samplers. Walmart was Glade's biggest US retailer, and online retailers ship roughly two million packages a day — a sampling opportunity nobody had used.
How it works
Glade, the S.C. Johnson air-freshener brand, faced a problem e-commerce creates for sensory products: online shoppers never get to smell the product before buying. With in-store sampling shrinking, Ogilvy Chicago needed a way to get the scent into people's hands — or rather, into their packages.
The agency found its medium in Walmart's shipping boxes. Every online order is padded with air pillows that shoppers must pop before recycling them. Glade refilled those pillows with its spring fragrance, so the moment of unboxing became a burst of scent — a free sample delivered to the customer's doorstep, with a QR code on the pillow to buy the fragrance.
Walmart was the natural partner because it was already Glade's biggest US retail channel and its shoppers were the most likely Glade buyers. The brand also sent surprise scent pillows to influencers with discount codes, extending the unboxing moment into social media.
The results were immediate: an 83% increase in Walmart.com sales of the featured scent in the first week and 11 million impressions in the first month. The campaign won four Cannes Lions in 2019 (including a Media Gold) and two Effie Awards 2020, with a Gold Effie among the nine finalists for the US Grand Effie.
Why it lands
- It solved a real e-commerce barrier — scent cannot be tested online — by making the package itself the trial.
- It borrowed Walmart's existing shipping material instead of buying media, so sampling rode along at virtually no extra distribution cost.
- Popping the pillow is a required recycling step, so customers experienced the fragrance before any pitch and were genuinely surprised.
- The QR code turned the sniff into an immediate transaction, closing the loop inside the same unboxing moment.
What it did
Walmart.com sales of the featured Glade scent rose 83% in the first week, and the campaign earned 11 million impressions in its first month. It took four Cannes Lions 2019 recognitions (including a Media Gold) and two Effie Awards 2020, with a Gold among the nine finalists for the US Grand Effie.
What you can take
When the product's proof is a sensation, put the sensation where the shopper already is: borrowed packaging beats borrowed attention and turns a logistics detail into a sales channel.
Since then
Scent by Glade is cited as the first campaign to bring smell into e-commerce transactions. Beyond its Cannes and Effie haul, it drew interest from shipping and logistics companies that saw scented packaging as a new advertising medium, and trade coverage continues to use it as the reference case for sensory marketing online.
Sources
- Campaña destacada – Scent by Glade: La original forma de irrumpir en el e-commerce a través del olfato
- Kampaň týdne: Glade, Scent by Glade
- Inger Tanderup – M List 2021
- Burger King's "Whopper Detour" wins the Grand Effie at the virtual 2020 Effie US Summit & Awards Gala
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