DUDE Wipes Promises ‘Best Clean, Pants Down’ in First Brand Campaign from Curiosity

DUDE Wipes, the Mark Cuban-backed flushable wipe brand made especially for man butts, is launching its first-ever brand campaign and creative platform, 'Best Clean, Pants Down'.

The playful tongue-in-cheek(s) campaign was created by Curiosity and marks the independent agency’s first integrated brand work for DUDE Wipes since being named its AOR in September 2022.

'Best Clean, Pants Down' features two 30-second spots that highlight the many advantages of flushable wipes, making dry, traditional toilet paper the butt of the joke. The anthem spot is a spoof on cheerful CPG ads of the 1980s featuring an earworm of a jingle, 'Drop Your Drawers'. It takes place in a world where men’s hindquarters are so clean, it’s normal, and even encouraged, to show off your skid-free tighty whities. The second spot, “Re-Learning to Wipe,” uses a classroom setting and cleverly arranged pairs of balloons to address common questions and myths about flushable wipes. Both spots, which were directed by Chris Woods of Method & Madness, will also appear in 15-second and 6-second versions.

“Best Clean, Pants Down” will also serve as the first tagline for the brand, which achieved notoriety when its founders appeared on a 2015 episode of Shark Tank. 

The campaign launches today in select cities, including Milwaukee, New Orleans, Buffalo, Fresno, St. Louis, and Baltimore, across social platforms (TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook), CTV, Spotify, and other digital platforms. The campaign will roll out nationally in January 2024, and will include placement across national broadcast TV.

Through the new work, DUDE Wipes is looking to target men 18 to 44, as well as women in the same age range, who are often the household’s primary purchasers of hiney hygiene products and the No. 1 victims of unclean dude bums.

“It’s an exciting time for our brand as we launch our first national media campaign with “Drop Your Drawers” and “Re-learning to Wipe. We've been able to do a pretty decent job at marketing over the years but we felt the brand was missing a catchy sell-slogan to bring it all together and take DUDE Wipes to the next level,” said Ryan Meegan Co-Founder and CMO of DUDE Wipes. “So, we tasked Curiosity with bringing us a 'Big Idea' that would communicate to customers the fun nature of our brand and, moreso, the complete clean DUDE Wipes provides over toilet paper. They hit it out of the park with ‘Best Clean, Pants Down’, the spots are the perfect mix of funny, while enlightening consumers that dry toilet paper is not getting the job done like they think it is, DUDE Wipes get the crap that toilet paper leaves behind”

“The DUDES’ challenge to us was clear: Make DUDE Wipes famous,” said Matt Cragnolin, creative director at Curiosity. “In order to do that, we knew we had to write the catchiest song about grown adults wiping their bum-bums and dropping trou known to man. Remember the 80s, when a chorus could sing gleefully about confidence and optimism while everyone high-fived each other and gave thumbs ups and it was totally normal and not weird or ironic at all? Well that’s how it feels when you’ve got an immaculately-clean manhole and crispy white undies to boot, thanks to DUDE Wipes! So, yeah, we did that.”

DUDE Products, the parent company of DUDE Wipes, was founded in 2011 by Sean Riley, Ryan Meegan and Jeff Klimkowski, three college friends whose mutual diets of burritos and booze sent them seeking a better, more “dude-sized” bathroom alternative to baby wipes. The next year they began selling packaged single-use DUDE Wipes out of their Chicago apartment. By 2014 they had turned their home business into a small DTC enterprise by selling packs of DUDE Wipes for men to keep in their bathrooms. In 2015 they took to Shark Tank, where they secured an investment and partnership from Mark Cuban, who focused on upping their presence at retail while continuing to grow their DTC business. Today DUDE is currently retailing $100+ million dollars on an annual basis.

Overall, the adult wipes category has only 34% household penetration in the US. Hence the goals of this first DUDE Wipes campaign include raising awareness of the category, removing any stigma men may feel around using flushable wipes, exploding myths around them (you can safely flush DUDE Wipes!) and educating consumers on the shortcomings of dry toilet paper. Research from Curiosity, which handles strategy in addition to creative for the brand, reveals that many men lack confidence regarding the cleanliness of their keister, creating the ideal opening for DUDE Wipes to enter with its brand promise of greater confidence and peace of mind.