P&G Tunes Up Scentstories with Twain, Tackles Hotels

Shania Twain sings
on DVD, not discs

Procter & Gamble taps its four-month-old partnership with singer Shania Twain to launch a new disc for its Scentstories by Febreze air-freshener system.

The scent (not music) disc, Shania’s Wishes for Spring, launches nationally this month with a DVD offer: Shoppers who buy the limited-edition disc can mail in their proof of purchase for a Twain music DVD. Landor, San Francisco, handles the DVD offer with Universal, which provided the videos on the DVD.

P&G also will donate $100,000 to America’s Second Harvest-The Nation’s Food Bank, a non-profit that Twain supports.

This is P&G’s first celebrity-endorsed scent disc, and its seventh disc since Scentstories launched in August 2004. Twain signed as Scentstories’ spokesperson in September; her songs are used in TV and radio spots, and she’ll appear in print ads and online at Scentstories.com pitching the new disc. Grey Advertising, New York City, handles.

Current TV spots send viewers online to register for a coupon for $10 off a Scentstories player—similar to a CD player, it “plays” a lineup of five scents over 2.5 hours. Each disc lasts 50 hours.

Scentstories garnered only $1.4 million in sales in its first four months, according to Information Resources, Inc. sales data for food, drug and mass stores (excluding Wal-Mart) through Dec. 26. Sister brand Febreze Air Effects has earned $12.4 million in sales for the same time period, per IRI.

Separately, P&G is launching a hotel cleaning service featuring its household cleaning brands including Febreze, Swiffer and Downy.

A joint venture with commercial cleaning firm Coverall Cleaning Concepts puts P&G products in the hands of outside crews hired to clean hotels, according to news reports. The service launches in Denver, where P&G and Fort Lauderdale, FL-based Coverall have tested it for two years. Coverall franchises commercial cleaning services nationally.

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