Entrant Company
TBWA\Canada
Program
Clio Creator 2026
Medium Types
Branded Creator Collaborations
Categories
Product Integration
Scotties is Canada's best-selling facial tissue, but most people still say "Kleenex" (even after Kleenex left Canada in 2023). With only 19.8% unaided awareness, Canadians simply weren't connecting the product they use to the brand behind it; a classic case of misattribution eroding brand equity.
The goal was to get Canadians to "Get the Name Right", closing the gap between category usage and brand recognition by making Scotties impossible to misattribute, while building an emotional connection with a younger audience the brand had yet to reach.
We leveraged a cultural icon whose own name could become the vehicle for the message. By having Scottie Barnes literally change his name to ScottieS (with an S at the end) Barnes, in a public, multi-platform stunt, we wouldn't just associate him with the brand, we would make him the living, breathing embodiment of the misattribution challenge and its playful solution.
This unique approach allowed us to transform a brand problem into an active, culturally relevant conversation. It tapped into the power of sports fandom, turning engaged fans into organic brand advocates who would actively correct misattribution, making the brand's fight for recognition their own.
From the very start, fans, Scottie Barnes, and the NBA community were all in.
Our influencer partners didn’t even have time to post before eagle-eyed fans were asking about it on Reddit. On social, fans took the name change seriously, not just correcting one another, but also chirping any official NBA or basketball content page that they needed to “Get The Name Right.”
The campaign was a huge success achieving:
+68% increase in unaided awareness, surpassing our benchmark by 36%
+207% increase in social mentions, surpassing our benchmark by 176%
45.6 million earned impressions, surpassing our benchmark by 82%
Brand for Me Association (Ages 18-36): Generated a +9-point increase, surpassing our benchmark by 80%
In fact, even though the campaign is over, (Scottie, or should we say Scotties) still hasn’t changed his Instagram handle back.