Homethings

The world is bonkers.
Homethings makes sense.

Naming
Brand Positioning
Tone of Voice
Copywriting

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Copy for planet-positive pods; laundry doesn't need to be another load on your mind.

A brand name that stretched to new product verticals.

A creative platform for bonkers brand activations.

A brand that made five dragons say yes.

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Key Copy

The world is bonkers. A quick plunge into the internet is all it takes to realise that – directories of celebrity feet and YouTube videos of tiny hamster eating tiny burritos, pigeons wearing cowboy hats in Vegas.
Single-use plastic makes as much sense as Kim Jong Un riding a horse.
Let's hang plastic pollution out to dry.

“Working with Sonder & Tell gave us both a name and north star for our brand before we even launched. In a collaborative process, they identified our aspirational customer and positioned us with a story and personality-driven tone to cut through. We used their strategy as a brief for our initial visual identity and years on we still use it as the launch pad for marketing activations and product development too.”

– Matthew Aubrey, co-founder

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Behaviour change starts at home.

Homethings came to us as an unnamed business idea. They wanted to launch a range of circular economy cleaning products with a mission to eliminate single-use plastics from the home. The founders knew they wanted to begin with direct-to-consumer cleaning sprays that can be refilled with just a tablet and tap water. But to *really* change consumer behaviour they needed a brand that would stretch to product verticals and retail distributions too. What’s more, a sea of sustainability sameness was rising. They needed to stand out.

The Insight

When the world feels bonkers, you look for sense.

At the time of creating Homethings, there was a collective feeling amongst young people that the world was pretty bonkers. Trump was out of control. The internet was awash with pictures of Kim Jong Un riding a horse. The world was heating up. Fast. And it felt like there was nothing they could do about any of it. When it came to the single-use plastic problem, and rallying people around the bonkers fact that 90% of your cleaning product is water….we needed to make the problem feel solvable, and the solution sensible.

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The world is bonkers, Homethings makes sense.

Homethings product was a simple, sensible solution to the single-use plastic under your sink. But we didn’t want the brand itself to feel sensible. (There were already enough minimalist cleaning brands doing the earthy quotes on instagram.) We wanted to play with this idea of bonkers and sense to create a maverick positioning that delivered a serious message about plastic waste in an unserious way (and zero pictures of piled-up plastic on beaches). To activate and engage customers, we pulled in ‘bonkers’ content from around the world (hamsters eating tiny burritos, dictators riding horses) and positioned the business as a challenger that made sense. And we named them Homethings. Things for the home, which we knew could stretch to FloorThings, SpongeThings, DishThings and further growth. Make sense.

The Result

New product, fresh distributions, five yeses on Dragons Den.

Since launching in 2020 (the year of cleaning) Homethings has secured tens of stockists including Waitrose, Booths, Wholefoods while reaching over 10,000 subscribers. They were named The Grocer’s Start Up of The Year 2022 and in 2023 launched a tap-dancing TV add rooted into the bonkers and sense strategy we’d set them up with three years before. Oh and they cleaned up on Dragons Den with five yeses and full-on dragon fight between Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden. Bonkers, indeed.