Fresh Step Made 3 TV Ads in 30 Days at One-Tenth the Cost

Fresh Step faced a business problem and needed ads in market quickly. The Clorox cat litter brand went from a brief to three finished 15-second spots in 30 days at about a tenth of what a traditional production costs, while the agency behind the ads used artificial intelligence.

What Clorox Just Pulled Off With Three Talking Cats

Fresh Step, the Clorox cat litter brand, launched in 1984 and needed a new campaign fast. The brand worked with an AI-powered agency called RECE, which stands for radical empathy and creative excellence, and went from a brief to three finished 15-second spots in 30 days, for about a tenth of what a traditional production costs.

The spots are rolling out now on linear TV, with shorter cuts for social, and were set to be live by Nov. 9.

The ads star a cast of talking cats — different breeds, different accents, different attitudes. In one, a dog loses the scent trail to the litter box. In another, even a very large cat is no trouble. In a third, cats queue around the block.

The brand pulled it off without needing real cats to hit their marks. And no six-month wait for a concept, either. That is the part that should matter to you, because the reason Clorox moved this fast had nothing to do with cats.

Why a Cat Litter Brand Was Ready to Blow Up Its Ad Process

Clorox CMO Eric Schwartz said at an Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing event that perceptions of Fresh Step had begun to slip — not the core perceptions, which were still good, but how the brand looked next to rivals.

Fresh Step's core promise is odor control, and the category was putting pressure on it. Executives want a bigger slice of a $5 billion U.S. cat litter market, and Fresh Step does not have it.

Clorox's senior marketing director for litter, Deb Crandall, said there was real business pressure, and that showing up six months later with an idea was not going to be acceptable. "We need things in market ASAP." (Marketing Dive)

The brand also wanted room to change direction if it had to, instead of being stuck after betting everything on one creative concept.

RECE founder and chief creative officer Toygar Bazarkaya said the speed AI creates lets the agency bring editors, composers, AI artists, strategy, copy and direction together at the same time. He said the process is "closer to a tech startup's prototyping process than a traditional ad agency's" (Marketing Dive).

Crandall said a campaign like this probably could not have been made even a year earlier.

So what did Clorox actually buy? Not just three ads. Something bigger, and my read is that it is the piece most dealers never build.

The Thing Clorox Actually Bought

Schwartz described the campaign as deliberately modular, built so the brand can swap benefits, new products, packaging and even messaging based on what it learns from shoppers in market. He said this is not a piece of creative they bet big on and then walk away from — they can keep learning and improving as they go.

At one-tenth the cost, that roughly works out to room for about 10 more campaigns.

That is a business model, not a discount. Same money, ten swings instead of one.

There is a caveat in the story, though, and it matters if you are thinking about putting a fake person in your ad.

The article notes that consumers are wary of AI in ads, and the Fresh Step spots are clearly computer generated. Crandall put it this way: "This, to me, was very clearly AI." (Marketing Dive) She said the brand is not trying to fool anyone — it is using the tech to dramatize situations many cat owners already live through.

The article also notes that AI content creation is trained on an internet still overloaded with cat videos, which may make it easier for AI cats to clear the uncanny valley than AI humans.

Here is my read on that, and it is opinion: that is not a reason to avoid AI presenters. It is a reason to stop pretending. The bigger question is what this does to your customer's path, and that is where it gets interesting.

What This Means If You Sell Powersports

Picture a powersports dealer in a mid-size market in March. You have a floor full of units, a factory program with a deadline, and a spring open house you have been promoting with the same boosted post since last year.

Now picture the same dealer with three 15-second spots instead of one. One built around a first-time rider walking in nervous. One built around a family that shows up with a trailer and three kids. One built around a guy trading up to something bigger.

All three in market inside a month, at a fraction of what one traditional spot used to cost, and the one that is dragging gets cut and replaced before the event is over.

That is the change. It is not about AI making ads. It is that you can afford to have more than one ad working at the same time, and you can kill the loser instead of defending it for six months.

My read: the other shift is the customer path. A rider who sees three different versions of your store in three weeks starts to feel like you are everywhere, even if your total spend did not move. That is a frequency problem solved with variety instead of money.

For a car dealer, the same math shows up in a much colder place.

What This Means If You Sell Cars

Picture a used-car manager with a full lot and a fixed monthly ad budget. Today that budget buys one production and a small media buy, and if the spot flops, the money is gone and so is the month.

Run the Fresh Step math instead. If production costs one-tenth of what it used to, the same budget stretches to about ten campaigns instead of one.

Ten offers. Ten hooks. Ten buyer situations — the first car, the growing family, the trade-up, the long commuter, the weekend toy. You run them, you watch which one pulls, and you put money behind the winner.

That is the number that should bug you. Not the production cost. My read: a cat litter brand can now afford about ten times more creative than most dealers, in a category where the product is litter.

And one more point: Clorox did not just want cheap ads. The brand wanted to keep refining after launch. My read: most dealerships never touch an ad once it is running. That is the gap.

How to Use This at Your Store This Week

None of this requires a big agency retainer. It requires you to change what you ask for. Here is what I would do, in order.

1. Write the brief the way Clorox did. The article says the brief began the usual way, with a business challenge and a customer insight. Open a blank doc. Write one sentence about the business problem — we need to move a batch of used SUVs before the month ends — and one sentence about the customer — buyers worry about getting stuck with a payment they cannot handle. Twenty minutes. That is it.

2. Ask for three 15-second concepts, not one 30-second spot. Clorox went to finished creative on three 15-second spots. Fifteen seconds is enough for one idea. Three of them gives you something to compare.

3. Prototype before you produce. The article says AI helped the brand build rough versions fast to see what landed, in a way a script on a page cannot always do. Before you pay for anything finished, get rough versions you can actually watch. If a rough cut does not move you, a polished one will not either.

4. Build it modular from day one. Schwartz said the modular design lets the brand swap benefits, messages and more as it learns. Practically: keep your voiceover, your on-screen text and your offer as separate pieces, so you can change the offer without reshooting the whole thing.

5. Decide what you would do with ten more ads. At a tenth of the cost, that math comes out to room for about ten more campaigns. Write down what ten more campaigns would let you test. If you cannot answer that, you do not need cheaper ads — you need a plan.

6. Be honest about the AI. The Fresh Step ads are clearly computer generated, and Crandall said the brand is not trying to fool anybody. If you use an AI presenter, do not dress it up as your general manager. Use it to dramatize a situation your customer is already living in.

7. Set a review date before you launch. Clorox planned to see how the ads resonated and then build more. Put a date on the calendar before launch, and decide in advance what you will cut and what you will scale.

A few prompts you can copy and paste to get moving:

Write three 15-second ad concepts for a powersports dealership running a spring pre-owned event. Each concept needs one customer truth, one visual hook that works with the sound off, and one clear closing line. Keep each script short.

Act as a creative director for a used-car store that needs to move a batch of SUVs this month. Give me five different 15-second concepts, each built around a different buyer: first car, growing family, trade-up, long commuter, weekend toy. Write the on-screen text and the voiceover separately for each.

Take this concept and rewrite it two ways: one that leads with price, one that leads with the customer's problem. Keep it 15 seconds and keep the same closing call to action.

Those prompts will get you drafts. Here is what will get you in trouble.

Mistakes That Will Cost You the Month

• Making one ad and calling it a campaign. Clorox made three. One ad cannot tell you anything, because you have nothing to compare it to.
• Producing before you prototype. The article says watching the cats in motion helped convince the brand the ads would connect. If you cannot watch a rough version first, you are guessing with real money.
• Hiding the AI. Shoppers are wary of AI in ads. Pretending a generated presenter is a real employee is the fastest way to lose trust you already paid for.
• Launching and walking away. Schwartz said the point was to keep learning and improving as they go. An ad you never touch is a bet you never check.

Avoid those four and you are ahead. The remaining bottleneck is production.