OxiClean’s marketing program with Major League Baseball is the brand’s highest return on investment of all its programs — period, said Kevin Sherlock, Vice President of Fabric Care Marketing.
The laundry brand has worked with MLB for the past 13 years and 2026 has delivered the highest fan engagement and ROI of any year in the partnership, Sherlock said. The program includes signage during games, endcap placements with retailers and in-person activations at MLB Opening Day, The All-Star Game and The World Series. The All-Star Game and accompanying three-day festival in July is the largest event activation of the three, Sherlock said.
Sherlock oversees Arm & Hammer, OxiClean, Xtra and Miss Mouth. (These brands are all owned by consumer goods company Church & Dwight.)
Event Attendance Increases 10% Year Over Year
This year, Sherlock estimates 6,000 consumers visited OxiClean’s booth a day during the All-Star festival, which is about 10%-15% higher than in previous years, he said. The event, held in Philadelphia, may have attracted more attendees than usual because of the 250th anniversary of America, Sherlock said. The MLB and Philadelphia had special features, such as 1776 apparel and fireworks.
At the OxiClean booth, the brand had a meet-and-greet with Philadelphia Phillies First Baseman Ryan Howard, which helped boost engagement for its booth, he said. In addition, the brand gave away samples and had coupons with QR codes to help track shoppers.
Retailer Engagement with OxiClean Is Key
OxiClean says a key pillar to a lucrative program is working with retailers that sell its product. The brand focuses on retailers that are near to the baseball stadium where the All-Star Game takes place. In Philadelphia, that was Giant Food (owned by Ahold Delhaize), plus ShopRite.
“Retailers want reasons to rally behind some sort of activation or some sort of partnership,” Sherlock said. “In the summer, it’s kind of a quiet time for a lot of things. This year with World Cup, it’s a little different, but usually this is kind of a quiet time. So retailers are looking for different partnerships and different reasons. And what’s better than baseball in the summer?”
Retailers will feature OxiClean in their ads and in-store displays for a few weeks to a month. That results in “a traditional display lift” for those products during that time frame, which is roughly a 15%-20% sales boost depending on if there is a promotion with it, Sherlock said.
The brand uses marketing mix modeling to measure the impact of the entire MLB partnership including the event, signage and ads.
“When we look at it all together, this is our highest,” Sherlock said about 2026 MLB program. “It exceeds all of our benchmarks. And of all of our programs, this is our highest ROI on medias, on our spend, total spend.”
OxiClean Grows the Program
Over the years, OxiClean has evolved the marketing program to continually engage consumers. Now it has some component between nearly every inning, he said, such as removing ketchup from a baseball jersey with OxiClean or an on-camera “Arm Flex” for Arm & Hammer.
Each year, the brand spends a bit more, builds on it, so it can continue to grow its return, he said. For example, the brand now has influencers at the events to further expand its reach beyond just the people at the event.
With social media, in-person events now have a much wider reach across the country, which has increased its ROI over the past few years, Sherlock said. Events still only make a splash during the event duration — and three days after at a maximum — but having it amplified on social media makes the event reach a wider market, he said.
How OxiClean Selects its Marketing Programs
The brand has shifted to investing in more long-term engagements and putting more resources in that bucket, like the MLB partnerships, because of the ability to learn and evolve each year. This is in lieu of buying one-time engagements. For example, OxiClean has shifted away from buying advertising placements connected to a program on a network and then having placements at a premiere.
“We like those, but they’re usually just one-and-dones for the most part,” Sherlock said. “We don’t have the ability to build longer term for the most part.”
OxiClean especially likes the MLB Media program because it attaches its product — which Sherlock admits is associated with a boring chore — to something fun.
“Most people don’t like doing laundry,” Sherlock said. “We try to partner with things they do like doing. In this case, baseball and interacting with their families.”
And while laundry doesn’t have much to do with baseball, Sherlock said the longevity of its brand is a good tie-in.
“Baseball is America’s pastime and we’re a 175-year-old company, and the combination of the two work well together from an authenticity standpoint,” Sherlock said.
