Domex, the No. 2 brand in India's toilet cleaner category, faced declining brand awareness and endorsement parameters following the post-COVID shift away from rigorous sanitation, particularly in the key market of Kerala, which contributes 12 percent of its annual business. To reverse this trend, Domex needed a high-impact market activation that would build brand measures while effectively communicating the superior cleaning power of its FreshGuard Technology. The brand recognized that toilet cleaning conversations needed to be normalized and brought into mainstream entertainment. Leveraging the popularity of Bigg Boss Malayalam among Kerala housewives, Domex created an innovative transmedia campaign called "Toilet Wars" that seamlessly integrated branded content into the reality show while extending engagement to mobile phones through interactive gaming.
By transforming traditionally passive TV viewing into an active participation experience, Domex successfully made the topic of toilet cleaning entertaining and approachable. The campaign delivered exceptional results across all metrics, including significant increases in brand awareness, favorability, and purchase intent, while driving 2.5 times sales growth — the highest ever recorded in the region.
Domex faced a critical challenge as Kerala, which contributes 12 percent of its annual business, was seeing declining brand awareness and endorsement parameters post-COVID. As consumers shifted focus away from rigorous sanitation, the brand needed to quickly build mind measures through a high-impact market activation. Simultaneously, Domex needed to effectively communicate the superior cleaning power of its FreshGuard Technology, which leaves a protective layer on toilet surfaces to address persistent problems such as stains, germs, and malodor.
Unlike other high-involvement categories, toilet cleaner brands struggle to occupy consumer share of mind. Historically, consumers have chosen toilet cleaners out of habit rather than investigating ingredients or technological aspects. Domex sought to bring toilet cleaning conversations to the forefront, normalizing attitudes around this typically avoided topic by integrating it into mainstream entertainment. As a challenger brand facing market leader Harpic (which holds 75 percent market share in the ₹1,330 crore segment), Domex needed to highlight its technology-driven product's superior efficacy in solving real consumer toilet cleaning needs.
The campaign targeted female housewives aged 22 and older in Kerala. These women were characterized as having progressive and contemporary attitudes toward maintaining their families' health and hygiene. With Kerala housewives constituting 51 percent of TV viewership among general entertainment channels (GECs) and reality shows enjoying particular popularity due to their topicality and competitive formats, Bigg Boss Malayalam offered an ideal platform to reach this demographic.
Domex recognized the relevance of the Bigg Boss House, with its regular home maintenance chores, as an ideal platform for integrating its homecare product. The challenge was to present toilet cleaning in a palatable and exciting manner. The brand chose games and gaming formats to make toilet cleaning entertaining and fun, introducing "Toilet Wars" in the Bigg Boss House as a series of toilet-cleaning competitions among contestants.
To transform the passive TV viewing experience into an interactive engagement opportunity, Domex leveraged insights about the popularity of mobile casual games among housewives (48 percent of 330 million gamers in India are women). By creating a mobile extension that allowed viewers to participate in the action via QR code scanning, Domex created a transmedia experience that bridged television content with mobile gaming, driving both brand awareness and engagement.
The Domex Toilet Wars campaign represented a true transmedia approach that extended traditional television viewing into mobile gaming, with three key components:
The sophistication of this campaign lay in its ability to transform a traditionally passive media channel (television) into an interactive experience through mobile integration. By creating a game that made the typically avoided topic of toilet cleaning entertaining and engaging, Domex successfully brought conversations about toilet hygiene to the forefront in an appealing manner. The campaign's multi-channel approach ensured that consumers encountered the brand across different touchpoints, reinforcing brand messaging while driving active participation.
The Domex Toilet Wars campaign delivered exceptional results across all key metrics:
These impressive results demonstrate how the campaign successfully achieved its dual objectives of building brand mind measures while effectively communicating Domex's product benefits. By creating conversations around the typically avoided task of toilet cleaning and bringing it to the forefront of discussions — first in the Bigg Boss House and consequently across households in Kerala — Domex effectively used the drama and excitement of reality shows to normalize toilet cleaning.
The campaign's innovative approach of making TV addressable through a mobile game drove active engagement, helping Domex reinforce its brand proposition while gathering valuable first-party data. Most importantly, the significant sales growth validated the effectiveness of this multi-channel strategy in not only building brand awareness but also driving tangible business results in a challenging category and competitive market.
