Kleenex Let It Out

This is the one that started it all. I was a wee strategist at JWT working on the global Kleenex account. I really hoped that we didn’t need to sell disgusting runny noses and illness along with these tissues. Putting on the ancient goggles for the first time, I realized that these tissues could actually help people be more expressive - more runny and messy and human and alive. In fact they were often an antidote to being emotionally bottled up and a tigger to open up. We could reframe this control brand as a release brand.

Having spent a year as a Greenpeace fundraiser working the streets of NYC, I knew many NYers were actually remarkably happy to stop and share their feelings. And having moderated focus groups where the appearance of a Kleenex box cued it was OK to cry, we thought we’d run a little experiment with a good listener and a blue couch on a cold winter day.

“Let It Out” went on to become a global brand platform and multi-year campaign for Kleenex. It won a Silver Jay Chiat award and a Gold Effie.