The brand was founded in 2001 to fill the niche between traditional chemical-laden cleaning products and an environmentally friendly line of products that had earned the catchphrase, "If it's green it doesn't clean." With its own "keep it weird" mantra, the quirky upstart launched a line of heavy-duty, eco-conscious cleaning products. The result, Stengel says, has been double-digit annual sales growth.
With a driving ideal of shaking up the home products biz, Stengel says, employees are motivated to come to work, green revolutionaries have something to fight for, and customers have something to look forward to. That ideal also helped Method identify and clean up its mistakes. In a commercial the company re-cast Dow's "Scrubbing Bubbles" as voyeuristic tub residue gawking at a mom taking a shower. The ad was appropriately weird, but it also felt a little, well, dirty. In the interest of keeping things happy and healthy, the spot was quickly pulled.
How its products went from nowhere to everywhere in the blink of an eye.
