The Challenge
Household paper goods (toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towel) is a category that is vital to our lives. In direct conflict to that, the category largely operates as a commodity. Brands are top-of-mind when people have run out, and purchases are often motivated by price and promotions. Emotional connections are limited. To solidify a meaningful role for Kruger’s brands beyond function, we needed to tap into the emotions behind real usage moments, those messy, chaotic moments that make up family life. In Canada, hockey is more than a sport—it’s a cultural thread linking communities across regions and languages. Local rinks serve as gathering places where families connect and traditions form. Minor hockey fosters teamwork, resilience, and belonging, embedding the game into daily routines and shaping identity through shared experiences and community involvement. Hockey is Canada’s Game. For five years, the Kruger Big Assist (KBA) program has helped remove financial barriers to youth hockey, making it more accessible and helping more kids play Canada’s Game. Our job was to use the KBA program to build emotional connections between Canadians and Kruger Products and its portfolio of brands: Cashmere, Scotties, Purex and Sponge Towels. For Canadians—typically humble, quiet and reserved—the Winter Olympics are a moment of collective pride, particularly for the hockey community. For Canadian-owned brands, this creates a powerful opportunity to foster deeper emotional connections with their audience.
The Solution
For Canadian families, supporting kids in minor hockey comes with real sacrifice: time, money, energy, and an emotional toll. Our spot recognizes that every player has a network of people behind them. The most powerful version of this story lived in the everyday happenings of minor hockey families, but to break through, we needed a direction that was more human and grounded in the way it celebrated the people behind the players. We resisted depicting the polished world we often see in sports advertising and went all-in on authenticity. The scuffed floors, the chaotic mornings, the emotional highs and lows, that comprises life as a hockey family. The creative challenge was finding how Kruger products are part of everyday life for hockey parents, and how they help in many messy situations (at the rink, at home, and in all the in-between moments). Introducing Rocked: an emotional, storytelling-driven film that celebrates Kruger’s products and hockey parents, who together quietly power their kids through the messy, unglamorous realities of youth hockey. Tending to injuries, cleaning up accidents, fixing what gets broken, and making sure their kids can get back out there. Without the parents, and the paper products they reach for, the game doesn’t continue. By showing the authentic role that Kruger’s products play in those moments, the brand becomes the unseen helper that enables parents to do what they do best. Just like in hockey, the assist doesn’t get the glory, but it’s essential.