Why P&G's Native deodorant sponsored a viral dating series for its holiday campaign

Speed dating requires swift judgments, often with limited information to base those decisions on. So, personal care brand Native introduced an additional element to assist speed daters on the viral YouTube series “The Button” in making their romantic decisions—smell. 

The Procter & Gamble brand partnered with entertainment company Cut Media, producer of “The Button,” to support Native’s holiday collection of deodorants, lotions and other personal care items categorized as either “naughty” or “nice” based on their scents. In four sponsored episodes of the series, released over the past month, the show’s participants chose to wear “nice” scents, such as Candy Cane or Sugar Cookie, or “naughty” scents such as Lump of Coal or Fresh Mistletoe, to reveal to potential partners which end of the seasonal spectrum they align with. 

Native is the first brand to sponsor “The Button,” which Cut Media relaunched this July after the coronavirus pandemic prematurely shuttered the series in early 2020, said Abigale Smith, Cut Media’s executive director of brand partnerships. The show revolves around speed dating sessions in which contestants sit across from each other at a table with the series titular button—which also speaks to the contestants—in the middle. Each pair has a short period to try to get to know each other, but also have the opportunity to swap out their counterpart by pressing the button.

The entertainment company has worked with several brands across its other series, including American Girl and PBS’ “Sesame Street” for shows on its child-oriented YouTube channel HiHo, as well as LeBron James’ tequila brand Lobos 1707 for its “Truth or Drink” game series, Smith said. 

In just five months, “The Button” has quickly become one of Cut Media’s best-performing series, not only on Cut—the company’s adult-centric YouTube channel with over 11.4 million subscribers—but also across Cut Media’s other social channels such as TikTok and Instagram. Several episodes of “The Button” have amassed millions of views—including the first of the Native-sponsored episodes, which attracted over a million viewers in only one week, Smith said.

The start of each Native-sponsored episode features a brief series of clips showing behind-the-scenes footage of contestants sampling Native’s holiday deodorants and lotions, as well as the button’s robotic voice stating, “Will our hopeful singles match with someone who’s naughty? Nice? Let’s find out.” And along with occasional product placement within the episodes themselves, Native’s naughty-or-nice campaign messaging continues into the rounds of speed dating.

In one episode, for example, the contestants are blindfolded, and the button encourages two contestants to smell each other and determine whether they think the other person is "naughty" or "nice." In another episode, the button asks a contestant reeling from an awkward interaction, “Are you sweating? Do you need some deodorant?”

“When you're nervous on a first date, everyone sweats a little bit, right?” Smith told Ad Age. “Maybe your heart is racing and maybe your palms are sweaty, and you want to make sure that you smell good; you want to make sure that you look your best. Engaging in that conversation, which is kind of funny but also so real, is what makes partnerships like this so authentic.” 

Cut Media reached out to several brands about potential partnerships, Smith said. But Native's creative agency, Muh-tay-zik / Hof-fer, contacted Cut Media about working together for Native’s holiday campaign.

The agency also created Native’s overarching holiday campaign, which includes a series of humorous video spots depicting people getting distracted by Native’s seasonal scents, as well as social media content across TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. 

Additionally, Native maintained the campaign’s romantic slant created through its partnership with “The Button,” with a sponsored “naughty or nice” quiz on Tinder that provided product recommendations based on users’ responses. 

The first episode of the Native partnership has amassed over 2.1 million views and 10 million impressions across Cut Media’s social channels, while the second episode has drawn 1.2 million views and more than 6 million impressions, Smith said.

A Native spokesperson was unavailable to comment on the partnership. But Native’s products helped at least two contestants find a potential match, at least—at the end of the final sponsored episode, two contestants shared a kiss beneath the brand’s Fresh Mistletoe-scented deodorant.