The legendary brand that became popular on TikTok, Hermès in the sponge brush category

A dishwashing sponge costs $4 (RMB 28)! You can't imagine how popular and beloved this dishwashing sponge with a cute smiling face is in the United States.

In the past decade, the brand "Scrub Daddy" founded by American man Aaron Krause has grown into a hair cleaning products company with 273 employees, sales in more than 250,000 retail stores, and sales of up to US$670 million.

Website: www.scrubdaddy.com

Aaron Krauss, also known affectionately as "Sponge Brush Dad," says of the product that changed the cleaning industry: "It's a miracle."

Aaron Krauss has loved invention since he was a child. After inventing a series of grinding and polishing discs, he started a car wash and paint care business. This sponge brush was originally designed by Aaron to clean the oil stains on the hands of workshop workers.

However, the material of this sponge is too hard. No worker or engineer would use this hard sponge to wash their hands. It seems to be a useless and failed invention. In 2008, many of Kraus' inventions attracted the interest of 3M. In the face of an irresistible price, Kraus sold his company for $3 million.

However, 3M was not interested in this seemingly useless invention. The patent for this hand-washing sponge was still under Krause's name, and the sample was abandoned on a shelf in the corner of the factory.

Until one day, Klaus's wife asked him to clean the furniture in the garden, and Klaus suddenly thought of those hard sponges thrown in the box and marked as garbage. It should be easy to use these hard sponges to scrape off the rust on the furniture. These useless sponges can finally come in handy.

After being immersed in hot water, Klaus suddenly discovered that the sponge became very soft, but when the temperature returned to normal or came into contact with cold water, the sponge returned to its original hardness.

Klaus exclaimed in surprise: "Oh my God! What did I miss?"

As a savvy entrepreneur, he knew that this product feature meant huge commercial value. Different types of cleaning tasks require sponges of different hardness, with soft sponges that won't scratch sensitive surfaces, and hardened sponges that can remove all kinds of stubborn stains and dirt.

Just this property of being able to harden and soften at different temperatures was not enough to make "Sponge Brush Dad" stand out in the market, so Klaus designed an iconic smiley face for "Sponge Brush Dad".

The highly recognizable design allows the product to attract consumers' attention in any scenario, and this silly smiley face design has multiple practical functions.

The mouth and eyes make it easier to hold and control Scrub Daddy when in use. You can also directly insert cutlery such as knives, forks and chopsticks into the small holes and pull them back and forth to clean them conveniently. The serrated edges resembling hair allow Scrub Daddy to easily clean various shapes and surfaces, including flat, curved and uneven surfaces.

Klaus firmly believes that this is a product that can redefine the cleaning products industry. The "Sponge Brush Dad" product not only has excellent cleaning performance, but more importantly, this sponge brush with a silly smile can make cleaning, as boring and tedious as it is, easy, interesting and fun.

Such a product is subversively different from the existing sponge brushes on the market and will definitely catch the eyes of consumers. Therefore, Kraus confidently set an unimaginably high price for the "Sponge Brush Dad" series of products, and even the wholesale price to the retail channel is $2 per piece.

In the most famous American reality show about entrepreneurship, Shark Tank, Lori Greiner, an investor with a keen eye for talent and known as the queen of TV shopping, saw at first sight the huge commercial value of this small sponge. After finalizing the investment cooperation, the product quickly verified Lori Greiner's sharp investment vision. In Greiner's TV shopping show, 42,000 sponges were sold to the audience in just 7 minutes.

The outstanding performance of "Sponge Brush Dad" on the show "Shark Tank" also attracted countless retailers to seek cooperation, and the sales of this interesting product exploded both offline and online!

As a savvy entrepreneur, Aaron Krauss knew how to take advantage of the situation. The exposure and influence of the "Shark Tank" program itself and the credit endorsement and personal connections of the investment tycoon and TV shopping queen Lori Greiner all brought huge potential energy to the brand's cold start.

Aaron Krauss certainly won’t miss out on the traffic dividend of social media platforms. TikTok, one of the most popular social media and content platform apps in the United States, has become the most important marketing position for “SpongeBrush Dad” in recent years.

Viewers who have watched the TikTok videos of "Sponge Brush Dad" will be amazed at the creativity of its content team. The "Sponge Brush Dad" brand has sub-brands designed for different groups (Sponge Brush Dad, Sponge Brush Mom, Sponge Brush Baby, Sponge Brush Dad's Dog, Sponge Brush Mom's Cat), or "Sponge Brush Dad" family members. The TikTok brand account of "Sponge Brush Dad" gives a panoramic display of the "Sponge Brush Dad" family through short drama videos, including many elements such as love, betrayal, forgiveness, conspiracy theory, suspense, etc.

You never know what kind of content this silly content team will create with this silly smiley sponge brush. These interesting videos have brought a steady stream of exposure and praise to Scrub Daddy, and the official account alone has gained 3.6 million followers and more than 70 million likes.

In one of the most popular videos, Scrub Daddy's mascot, a giant sponge brush puppet, and Duo, the owl mascot of another internet giant, have an affair in the office. Don't forget, Sponge Daddy's spouse is Sponge Mama. In the subsequent plot, the married Sponge Daddy obviously made the same mistake that men make.

Something even more jaw-dropping happened. Duolingo's cute mascot Duo gave birth to a bunch of cute owl-shaped sponge brushes.

This may be the most bizarre brand collaboration and the most absurd plot design I have ever seen.

Such interesting and funny creativity made the audience laugh, and brought millions and tens of millions of views to the Duolingo and SpongeBrush Dad brands.

In the comment section, one viewer praised, “The marketing team is really creative!”

There were also curious people asking if the hybrid sponge brush baby was for sale. The sponge brush father responded strongly: "These sponge brushes are the fruit of our love, and you actually want us to sell them?"

You can never imagine how much fun these idiots can have.

In another viral video, a boss mistook the newly launched product Streakless Cloths for a streak, and excitedly ran naked around the office holding the new product and a large sponge brush to cover his body.

A group of female employees watching from the back had evil smiles on their faces.

"It's streakless, not streak!" Until an honest employee bravely stood up and stopped the crazy company boss Aaron Krauss.

At the end of the video, the audience is naturally guided to purchase this newly launched product.

“Remember, it’s streakless, not streak!”

With such funny homophonic pun video creativity and a boss who is open-minded and not afraid to take action himself, how could this video not go viral!

This video has received millions of views, 150,000 likes, thousands of comments and thousands of shares.

Many viewers also said that they fell in love with Scrub Daddy because of its TK content.

Perhaps the comment that made the SpongeBrush Daddy marketing team feel the most accomplished was still: “You are the best, best, best marketing team!”

The Scrub Daddy marketing team does not just rely on funny creativity to take an unconventional approach. On TikTok, the Scrub Daddy brand label has accumulated 3.3 billion views, a large part of which is contributed by Internet celebrities and consumers.

You should know that the most popular community on TikTok, #CleanTok, where people who like to watch cleaning tips and other content have accumulated 83 billion views under this tag.

By collaborating with a large number of influencers on TikTok who love to share cleaning processes and techniques, influencers will participate and intervene in every aspect from product design to content production and new product promotion. The Scrub Daddy brand will establish a closer relationship and deeper connection with consumers on TikTok.

The value that TikTok can provide is always more than just brand exposure and sales.

With the help of TikTok, the sales of "Sponge Brush Dad" are soaring.

Spongebob's dad, Klaus, always gets excited when talking about TikTok. In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, he explained that sometimes he only sleeps three hours a night because he can't help but read every comment from viewers on TikTok.

Klaus said that thanks to TikTok, the brand was able to reach a large number of new audiences that were previously unreachable through traditional marketing, and the company's return on investment in TikTok marketing could be nearly 100 times!

TikTok has created a huge second-blow growth potential for this fun cleaning product and brand.