Functional, boring, and sterile. Is that all hand sanitizer can be? I see a sale of 880 million that says otherwise! Lets explore Touchland and how it managed to sell close to a billion in such a small market.
For the uninitiated: Touchland recently sold to Church & Dwight for an astounding 880 million. Touchland is famous for their spray-on hand sanitizers. What makes them worth the hype? They followed in the footsteps of the pioneers before them and disrupted the space! Other hand sanitizer brands have a very medical branding to them. They’re green or blue, function over form, and read like a doctors note. Touchland saw this and realized that there was a gap in the market.
They decided to brand themselves in a more playful manner. Different scents with different colors and targeting a specific audience of young people. They have collabs with different entertainment brands, accessories for the bottle itself, and it also helps that there was a ton of TikTok content about the brand.
By making something that is almost like a chore more fun and a collectors item targeting youth culture: you get a lot of brand loyalty. This allows Touchland to expand into other caterogies like perfume and grants them access to a whole new sub-genre of consumers.
It’s no surprise that they sold for the amount that they did. This success story is reminiscent of those like Liquid Death. Marketers find a gap in an industry and take advantage with smart design and smarter branding. It’s not too difficult when your competitors all look the same!