Seven days, one suit, zero washes: Cuddly Refresh Rinse takes on activewear’s ‘Permastink’ via VML
Some smells come out in the wash, others become permanent. Cuddly Refresh Rinse is taking on the latter in a new campaign from VML, putting one activewear suit, one influencer and seven days of accumulated sweat to the ultimate test.
To prove Cuddly Refresh can rinse out even the most offensively stubborn odours from activewear, Cuddly enlisted DJ and comedian Dom Littrich to create as much stank as humanly possible. Littrich wore the same full-body activewear suit for seven days without washing it, putting it through an increasingly sweaty series of challenges across TikTok and Instagram, culminating in an epic finale at Voltaren City2Surf. Along the way, friends, instructors, athletes and even his partner were subjected to the campaign’s scientific measurement system: the sniff test.
Says Adrian Romanin, Marketing Director, Personal & Home Care ANZ, Colgate-Palmolive: “Activewear is designed to work hard, but that also means it can hold onto stubborn odours. We wanted to show what Cuddly Refresh Rinse can do in a way that felt entertaining and relevant to how Australians actually use their activewear. So naturally, we decided to make one suit smell as bad as humanly possible.”
Says Richard Williams, Group Executive Creative Director, Melbourne & Sydney, VML: “There’s a very familiar moment when you pull your gym gear out of the wash, give it a sniff and realise the smell somehow survived. That was really where the idea started. It’s such an everyday frustration, so we thought it would be fun to take it to a completely unreasonable extreme. If one sweaty workout is bad, what happens after seven days in the same bodysuit and a Voltaren City2Surf run?”
By the end of the week, the campaign had clocked more than 25.6 million views across TikTok and Meta, with Dom’s rugby training the biggest hit, reaching 3.3 million people. After seven days, countless amounts of sweat and more unwilling noses than anyone cared to count, the suit finally got its wash with Cuddly Refresh Rinse. The final proof? Littrich’s partner put it on. Because if Cuddly Refresh Rinse can rinse the Permastink out of that, your activewear should be in pretty safe hands.
Client: Colgate-Palmolive (Home Care brand: Cuddly)
Creative Agency: VML
PR Agency: Burson
Media Agency: Wavemaker
Influencer Agency: WPP Influence
Talent Agency: Mushroom Group
Talent: Dom Littrich
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