How OpenFortune Helped Dude Wipes Make a Fortunate Marketing Splash

Dude Wipes understands climbing the rungs on the personal hygiene product ladder.

A core lineup of wet wipes offers an alternative to your sometimes-subpar regular old toilet paper, ensuring that after every bathroom adventure you’re keeping clean, feeling good, and never take yourself too seriously while doing it.

How does a business about doing your business — but cleaner, greener, and chaffing-be-gone meaner — stand out in the traditionally delicate marketplace of personal hygiene products, all without being the perpetual butt of its own joke?

With an existing brand voice mirroring three buds goofing over a beer, Dude Wipes never lacked a clear personality. Yet it recognized a need to push its own product memorability more than its leading competitor. They sought an out-of-home (OOH) campaign honoring the brand’s everyman-worthy wit and approachability while accessing a wider audience, forging a connection meant to carry through the consideration phase.

That’s when OpenFortune entered the chat.

Dude Wipes jumped at what it realized was a natural (albeit, erm, often unspoken) connection — dudes eating and dudes using the loo, often after an indulgent takeout feast. The idea leveraged the traditional OOH ad logic stressing promotion with savvy product placement, yet at a scale that would have previously clogged Dude Wipes’ marketing budget.

By partnering with OpenFortune, Dude Wipes released 1,000,000 specialty fortune cookie slips, each containing a memorable dual-sided message: On the front slip, your classic fortuitous one-liner with a porcelain-throne comedic twist; on the back, brand-relevant copy, a clear product image, and the Dude Wipes’ unmistakable logo. 

Fortune cookies as an ad vehicle scratched several itches, and without any aloe. Dude Wipes cracked instant memorability with clever, witty fortune readings that paired organically with its products’ natural purpose — and during a touchpoint with a built-in higher probability of bathroom use. All while still passing, shall we say, the dinner-appropriate vibe check?

Scale paired with humor — all wrapped in a yummy cookie — is the evergreen dream combo. Dude Wipes’ leveraged one of its first successful social activation campaigns, and in doing so checked the boxes of driving brand awareness and distinguishing itself from a top competitor.

Three out of every four consumers (74%) who received a cookie presented unaided product recall. Nearly a quarter (22%) kept their Dude Wipes’ branded slips as a quirky collectible; another 7.5% actually posted their Dude Wipe fortunes on social media. Toilet paper could never.

While these overall metrics sure don’t stink (unlike you after that hangover meal of triple bean-and-cheese nachos), Dude Wipes unlocked an even bigger asset: natural attention marketing.

OpenFortune’s cookie slip campaign reached a primed, wider target audience when it made most sense to reach them — during their own mealtime, via their own takeout orders — without battling for attention. It cemented stellar recall rates nearly triple the average of traditional OOH ad methods, became a consumer-chosen souvenir, and influenced brand familiarity and purchase intent. Besides a cookie, what more could you crave?