Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 11th April 2024 Issue no. 1109
Your industry news - first
The original and best - for over 20 years!
We strongly recommend viewing Cleanzine full size in your web browser. Click our masthead above to visit our website version.
Rug Doctor modernising carpet cleaning business with innovation and technology, plus clever branding
Rug Doctor tells us it is reinventing 'clean' as it approaches its 20th anniversary in North Texas.
The global name in do-it-yourself carpet cleaning, whose Plano headquarters employs nearly 100 people, is relaunching the rental business with its most significant innovation in its 45-year history.
The relaunch has been led by Travis Lewis who was named Rug Doctor CEO in 2015 and has set out to improve and modernise all aspects of the business, which includes an all-new product launch, optimisation of operational efficiency at 40,000 retail locations such as Walmart and Kroger, and fresh thinking with new talent hires from across the consumer product industry.
"Rug Doctor's heritage is a deeper professional clean at a better value with the best system," says Travis. "That has not changed - what is changing is how we better deliver on that promise and communicate it to the customer in ways that fits with their lives today.
Rug Doctor's two new rental machines, the Rug Doctor Pro Detailer & Portable Spot Cleaner and the Rug Doctor Pro Deep Upright Carpet Cleaner, are easier to use, lighter, more powerful and versatile than ever. The all-new Pro Deep Upright Carpet Cleaner has even been awarded the Carpet and Rug Institute's Platinum rating, the highest rating awarded, for superior dirt and water removal comparable to cleaning results of a professional service. The machines also have a new functionality new to the category - in addition to soft surfaces they have the ability to clean hard floors and grout.
Retail partners who house Rug Doctor's rental displays are excited to see the investments the company is making to grow the category with new products. They are equally enthusiastic about the enhanced technology, which has allowed Rug Doctor Operations to more closely monitor retailer needs, resulting in faster and more effective servicing of machines and cleaning concentrate replenishment.
Jan Valentic, Rug Doctor chief marketing officer, has been leading the branding transformation. Staying true to the company's heritage of delivering a professional quality clean, she wanted the brand to be contemporised and made more relevant and memorable.
In April the new advertising campaign launched. The Rug Doctor Institute of Clean, which was inspired by Rug Doctor's R&D facility where engineers and chemists put products through tortuous testing to ensure that Rug Doctor machines can clean what life throws at them. The campaign even coined a new Urban Dictionary term to describe the feeling people experience after a deep cleaning when they pour out the dirty water tank and see the filth that was extracted from their carpet: disgustifaction, the feeling of utter disgust combined with total satisfaction!
Results of the campaign have shown an increased affinity for the brand.
26th October 2017