Grand Central Station is quickly becoming a hub of not just mass transit but laundering education. After last month’s demonstrations in personal steaming by Conair, another brand, Spray 'n Wash, staged a morning of tips on color retention under a quarter-mile of hung laundry to promote its new Bright & White spray last Wednesday.
The genesis of the promotion was for Spray ‘n Wash to enter the Guinness World Records with some sort of laundry pile or long clothesline, but when it became clear that this would involve either 75,000 T-shirts or more than 21 miles of strung-up garments, the brand decided to focus on a smaller installation and product education.
Working with Illinois-based JSH&A Public Relations, the producers at Empire Force Events looked into ways of accomplishing that in a media-friendly spot in New York, quickly choosing Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall for its enticing promise of 75,000 individual consumer impressions a day.
“We decided to play off the idea of a month’s worth of laundry for a typical family,” said Empire Force Events senior partner Robert W. Hulsmeyer of the thousand individual garments strung up above the display. “We were also inspired by the look of Christo’s Gates in Central Park.”
The quarter-mile of winding clothesline wasn’t the only element at work, though. Spray ‘n Wash wanted to emphasize the perks of a non-bleaching product like its own, so producers cast a family of twins to illustrate clothes that had been cleaned with Spray ‘n Wash and those damaged by bleach. “Each pair of twins, representing the mother, father, and children of the family, was dressed in identical clothing,” said Hulsmeyer. “We got to show people how the clothes can stay bright and new without being damaged.”
