Swept Away by The Swiffer Couple

At first it may seem that Swiffer is just embracing stereotypes in order to get this adorable. couple to touch our hearts. With a closer look, however, I think you'll find that this campaign has a multitude of facets that illustrate the easy of using their product. By using the elderly in their commercials, the benefits of their product are amplified. In previous campaigns, Swiffer typically depicted middle aged women using their product. The downfall with using a younger actor is that the young would merely find a Swiffer convenient because they have the ability and strength to wring out mops reach high spaces easily, while the elderly find it the easy of using a Swiffer to be a relief for aching joints and arthritic hands. Also, by using these older actors, ironically the ads get through to a wider audience. It captures the hearts other elderly persons as well as their children and grandchildren because the humor in this ad reminds them of loved ones.


In the example below, the ad displays the elderly woman trying to tackle the dusting. Her husband shows concern for her as she attempts to climb a ladder to reach above a display cabinet. Unlike the middle-aged examples used in previous ads, these ads show a solution to any even more dangerous problem. Lee (the elderly woman) admits, "Now that I'm getting older, some things are harder to do." With the Swiffer, husbands and daughters won't have to worry about their mother falling and critically injuring herself when cleaning.

The following example takes a more playful approach. The old women had trouble wringing out her mop, however the ease of the Swiffer mop is comparable to something pleasurable that involves two people- dancing! In both of these commercials, the inclusion Lee's husband, Morty, makes them more relatable appealing to men.

Despite being an average couple from a small town in New York, the success of this campaign has brought fame to America's new favorite elderly. They've been featured on the Ellen Show and various other talk shows where they discuss their history together. When asked why the commerical was such a hit in an interview, Morty Kaufman stated, "Frankly I think it's our age. You usually don't see people our age in commercials... We feel that all the commercials are made by young, beautiful people and we think our age group has been neglected and so we're holding up our end." (Huffinton Post) I believe that this unique campaign reveals that viewers simply want to see real and relatable characters. One can easily see that not only does it make the product more appealing to audiences, it also makes them emotionally involved. All in all, their success is owed to their deviation from the norm.