In Brazil, the typical family does three to five loads of laundry a week. Each load takes between four to five hours from wash to dry. With the pandemic resulting in prolonged periods of home seclusion and children spending more time indoors, many Brazilians are seeking products that make washing their clothes quicker, easier and less of a chore.
The emergence of Clique Aqui, a coin-op laundromat adapted to the Brazilian clientele, is a good example of this. They provide a service whereby customers can leave their laundry in plastic bags, add detergent and fabric softener (which they bring), and the clerks do the rest – including pressing if required – and return the bagged clothes to their clients.
Give the user control to influence resource use
Compared with UK participants, Brazilians who own top-loading washing machines have a clearer understanding of their machine’s water and energy consumption. They can see the water being added and waste being released, giving them direct sensory feedback on their machine’s resource consumption, which differs from their experience in the UK where they simply turn a button on a homogenous white box.
In addition, household budgets are strained during the pandemic, leading to increased demand for cleaning and disinfection products such as aerosol home care disinfectants and all purpose cleaning wipes. However, product pricing and lack of awareness amongst Brazilian consumers remain barriers to broader adoption. For these reasons, brands of all-purpose cleaning wipes need to offer lower prices and communicate more clearly the benefits of their products if they want to tap into the growth potential in Brazil.