Campaign Trail: Dr. Squatch uses hypnosis to inspire ‘​​Big Bricc Energy’

Founded in 2013, Dr. Squatch has spent the last few years using its marketing muscle to toy with traditional ideas of masculinity — think American flags and flannel shirts — en route to viral online videos, a Super Bowl ad about men who slay dragons and let their daughters braid their hair, and a massive TikTok presence.

For its latest effort, the digitally native men’s grooming brand is back with the same style of offbeat humor, delivering its oversized Mega Bricc product with a campaign that plays off internet slang to reach — and hypnotize — millennial men.

In a 30-second video, the “Big Bricc Energy” campaign puns off both a meme phrase that dominated culture a few years ago and a more recent bit of slang for male arousal by strategically placing a bar of soap in swim trunks. The campaign also includes TikTok content around recent trends, like get ready with me (GRWM) videos that have taken the platform by storm. 

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But the value add of the campaign isn’t just raunchy humor: It’s three videos from hypnotist Richard Barker that aim to help men improve their hygiene, sexual performance and self-confidence and address an epidemic in men’s mental health.

“Four out of five millennial men feel insecure about their looks and struggle with self-confidence, and for us, that really resonates and hits home, because part of what we want to do is provide guys with natural personal care products that help them feel great, smell great and, ultimately, feel more confident in themselves,” said John Ludeke, senior director of brand marketing at Dr. Squatch.

Mixing entertainment and educational content has long been a focus of the brand as it works to inspire men to be happier and healthier. It also allows Dr. Squatch to break through in a category that has very low emotional engagement.

“Most guys don’t really care: They buy what they’ve been buying for years, or they use what someone else gives them,” Ludeke explained. “So what we really try to deliver is material that they’re going to find interesting, that they’re going to relate to and that’s going to deliver some sort of value for them.”  

Hypnosis and beyond

To deliver value, Ludeke and the Dr. Squatch team look to expand their campaigns beyond fun, quirky videos and connect with consumers at different touch points. For “Big Bricc Energy,” that meant enlisting celebrity hypnotist Barker to elevate inspirational messages into something loftier.

“A lot of people these days, especially men, are into self-help and self-care, so we wanted to work with a partner who’s well known for being able to help guys with their confidence ... to create some material that would help bolster the campaign and provide additional value,” Ludeke said.

"Not everyone's into that, but we try to build those elements into all of our campaigns and content. For people who start to dig a little bit deeper, they can see that there's a lot more than just what's on the surface," the exec added.

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While Dr. Squatch maintains a quirky tone in its marketing, its messaging usually revolves around the benefits of natural products. That positioning is reinforced with education about products, formulas and ingredients on its website, which also details the brand’s philanthropy work.

Authenticity around product and purpose connects back the Dr. Squatch’s voice in its marketing. The brand has worked to remain customer- and fan-centric, carefully checking its content to make sure it’s both humorous and helpful. That approach is part of what sets the direct-to-consumer brand apart from its competitors. 

“Often the difference between challenger brands and larger-scale CPG companies is the distance between you and the people who are actually buying and using your product. We try really hard to keep that distance as minimal as possible,” Ludeke said. 

“It’s a very different approach in terms of how we listen to and interact [with consumers],” the exec added. “We don't do it as if they’re research subjects — we do it because we are them and we genuinely care about that.”