The laundry detergent market in Colombia is a challenge for brands, with brands old and new playing into inflationary pressures by offering discounts making them up to 600% cheaper than traditional brands and eroding any other form of differentiation and users increasingly rational and less willing to pay for attributes perceived as generic.

Independent agency, Fantástica, and Gradezco, parent of laundry detergent brand, TOP, had to find a new way to make TOP appeal. So they listened to users’ problems – and found a cultural opening.

Colombia buys 37 million pairs of jeans each year, yet the relationship with this garment is filled with anxiety – losing colour, fading the fabric, or shortening its lifespan. Jeans are washed less than recommended not out of carelessness but out of emotional protection. This tension is amplified by a science-backed finding – Dopamine Dressing, the idea that what we wear has a direct impact on our emotional state.

So Fantástica and Gradezco gave them TOP Jeans, a brand protecting the most worn and most loved garment in Colombia, solving a problem no one in the category had addressed.

“TOP Jeans is not just a launch: it’s a business idea designed to energise a stagnant category, proving that innovation can still open new possibilities even in the most challenging environments,” stated Alejandro Gómez, CCO, Fantástica.

“TOP Jeans was born from listening to what people feel about their most beloved garments. Its return responds to a real, cultural, and emotional need,” added María Teresa Pérez, CMO, Gradezco.