How hand sanitizer Touchland is taking on Purell and Germ-X

Brands on the Rise is a regular Ad Age feature spotlighting the marketing and business tactics of successful challenger brands. Read other installments here. As hand sanitizer sales surged during the early months of the pandemic, Touchland—an upscale variety—could not take advantage of the sudden burst in demand. “Unfortunately, the brand experienced big supply chain issues that left us without product for a year during COVID,” Andrea Lisbona, Touchland’s founder and CEO, said in an interview. But Touchland, an upscale hand sanitizer mist that looks like a small iPhone and smells like an overpriced candle, has since corrected course and is enjoying stellar growth, thanks in part to a lighthearted marketing approach that runs counter to category conventions. The privately held company’s revenue jumped 185% in 2022 as it regained product availability, and it managed to keep that momentum going with a 203% increase in revenue in 2023, according to figures Touchland shared with Ad Age. Celebrities including Charli D’Amelio, Kim Kardashian, Mindy Kaling and many more are now fans of the brand, according to Lisbona, who said Touchland has never paid celebs to post about the brand. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Touchland (@touchland) Read on to find out how Touchland emerged from its supply chain woes to become a prestige upstart that is challenging and disrupting larger brands in the category such as Purell and Germ-X. How it started After studying fashion design in Barcelona, Lisbona started working on what would eventually become the Touchland brand in 2010. During school, she said, “I was very inspired by Apple and Dyson, and how design comes into play when you create products.” Touchland got its start in Spain with a series of prototypes. The team used consumer research to refine the products, speaking to hand sanitizer users about all the things they didn’t like about mainstream brands. The top concerns were smell and consistency—alcohol scents and sticky liquids. By 2018, Touchland had relocated to the U.S. “It’s very hard to innovate in Europe,” Lisbona said, noting that, in her opinion, people are a bit more reluctant to try new things or products there than they are in America. Also read: What Gen Z wants from health and wellness brands To fund the move and product updates, Touchland set up a Kickstarter campaign that was fully funded to its $15,000 goal in 24 hours and ended up being 450% funded within a month, Lisbona said. After that, orders for Touchland’s hand sanitizer started coming in. “In order for us to change the perception of personal care in the consumer’s mind, we needed to change the distribution strategy,” Lisbona said. So instead of entering retailers where shoppers were used to buying hand sanitizer, such as grocery and drug stores, Touchland’s mission was to be the “first hand sanitizer to be sold in prestige beauty” stores, Lisbona said. Touchland rolled out in Ulta Beauty in 2019, Target in 2020 and Sephora in 2022, per Lisbona. While a small order was reserved for Target.com in 2020, due to supply chain issues, the brand didn’t enter Target’s physical storefronts until 2022. In 2019, its first products in Ulta sold out in two weeks, she said—and this was pre-pandemic, before hand sanitizer purchases would skyrocket by 600%. Tipping point Lisbona cannot identify the exact moment her brand tipped into successful startup territory. But she remembers when Touchland’s success felt the most unlikely. After not having any products for sale due to supply chain issues from March 2020 until August 2021 (other than a brief and small restock in June 2020), Touchland returned to the most competitive and oversaturated hand sanitizer market, maybe ever. At the time, “retailers were flooded with hand sanitizer not selling,” she said. “It was awful to relaunch the product then.” But Ulta, Sephora and Target were all still willing to take a small chance on Touchland, giving the brand a “tiny” amount of shelf space and saying “This is all you’re gonna get, hand sanitizer is not selling like before,” Lisbona recalled. “When you’re given these prestigious spaces in retail, and you leave it empty for a year, you usually don’t get a second chance,” she continued. But Touchland proved itself when shortly after the relaunch, sales from those tiny bins were relatively high in comparison to other skincare brands in-store at the time. Since that moment in 2021, the retailers have all significantly increased Touchland’s shelf space, she said. “In the last two and a half years, we’ve been able to really be given a second chance and to really prove that again, taking care of yourself and hygiene should not be limited to a pandemic,” Lisbona said. Marketing strategies While many hand sanitizer companies shifted gears to talk about the pandemic in their ads back in 2020, Touchland stayed away from the topic, per Lisbona. It didn’t want customers buying the products out of fear, she said. “Touchland was born with a goal to inspire people to enjoy life and bring personal care products that really make your life easier. So we wanted to continue our journey like that,” she added. As the pandemic waned and people felt less afraid to resume normal life, Touchland wanted to celebrate the fact that it was becoming safer to, well, touch again. So in August 2021, once Touchland’s supply chain issues came to an end, the brand rolled out its first ad and brand campaign. Titled “Touch Like in the Before,” the campaign, which ran on streaming channels, was inspired by an underground party in New York, Lisbona said. Lisbona described the ad as “just a party, with people kissing and touching, very sensual.” In 2021, when people were still wearing masks outside, it felt edgy. “We felt we had to make a statement of like, ‘we want you to go ahead, touch, jump, have fun. We’re going to be there for you,” she said. “We didn’t want to be a reminder of the pandemic, we want to be a partner for the great adventures to come.” Touchland worked with the creative agency Feelings Group, led by creative director Veronica del Rosario, for the ad. Rosario has also done work for direct-to-consumer brands including Thinx and Dame. Today, Lisbona said the majority of Touchland’s marketing budget goes to Meta and Google ads (Touchland still has a robust direct-to-consumer business), and it also spends on TikTok. Touchland spends between 10% and 20% of its sales on marketing per year, she said. The brand also has a history of doing collaborations with other entities, including creating a black-and-pink hand sanitizer bottle with the band Blackpink. It also recently gave away a bottle of 818 Tequila. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Touchland (@touchland) What the experts say A 1 fluid ounce bottle of Touchland hand sanitizer mist about the size of a credit card can sell for anywhere from $10 to $16, depending on the scent (its “beach coco” scent is $10, for instance, whereas its rosewater scent is $16). That’s more expensive than Purell, which currently sells an eight-pack of 1-oz. bottles of its gel hand sanitizer for $12.99 on Amazon. Touchland contains 70% ethyl alcohol, the same as Purell. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% of ethyl alcohol, which is the active disinfectant ingredient in many hand sanitizers. Suzy Davidkhanian, VP, content, head of retail and e-commerce practice at Emarketer, said some consumers think the price difference is worth it for a more luxurious scent and experience. Touchland, she said, has “figured out a way to elevate” hand sanitizer and make its product a must-have item. Perhaps that’s partly due to Touchland positioning itself as a beauty product rather than a health care one. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Touchland (@touchland) “They have figured out a way to show you how this little luxury is so good for you,” she said, noting that everything consumers hate about Purell—from the stickiness to the scent—is what Touchland isn’t. While Purell (34.3%) and Germ-X (11.1%) take up the majority of market share in the U.S. hand sanitizer category, Touchland holds 4.9%, per data Numerator shared with Ad Age. The data is for the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2024 and includes retailers in food, mass, drug, club, dollar, gas and convenience retailers, both in-store and online. While Touchland is a small part of the entire hand sanitizer market, it’s managed to grow its revenue quickly in a crowded marketplace, Davidkhanian said. In the 52 weeks ending March 24, $273 million worth of hand sanitizer was sold in U.S. retailers, including grocery, drug, mass market, convenience, military and select club and dollar stores, according to Circana, a Chicago-based market research firm. While that number has shrunk since the pandemic, when retail sales via those channels totaled $1.6 billion in the year ending Jan. 3, 2021, Touchland’s revenue has continued to grow year-over-year. Touchland does not have the upscale sanitizer market to itself—Davidkhanian noted that The Honest Company and Bath & Body Works sell premium varieties, making it even more impressive that a small independent brand has managed to grow in this environment. “They have a very small market share, but are probably growing much faster than Purell,” Davidkhanian said. What’s next Looking ahead, Touchland is focusing on rolling out undisclosed products in more categories in the personal care space. The brand plans to market these categories with streaming video campaigns as well, Lisbona said. Touchland is also set to roll out in all of Kohl’s in-store Sephora outposts. Lisbona also teased more brand collaborations similar to the ones the brand has done with other brands and entities, including Blackpink. ~ ~ ~CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the ethyl alcohol content in Touchland. 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How upscale hand sanitizer Touchland is taking on Purell and Germ-X

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