MORE ANUS PLEASE
On comfort, visibility, and the strange places real brands get made with Katelynn Ludwig Director of Brand Strategy at DUDE Wipes
Creatively Speaking is me in conversation with the people shaping the creative world from the inside.
Last time I talked with creative lead, Andy Andersen. We spent an hour in the midsection.
This time, Katelynn Ludwig and I covered much more surface area.
Because strategy people do this thing where they can talk about butts and household purchase behavior and hold a fart at the same time.
When she talked about her path into strategy, it didn’t sound like a ladder story.
It sounded more like she was seeking out fast-paced, start-up environments led by founders who puke in the face of comfort, complacency and people who stand on the moving walkway at O’Hare Airport.
Myself on the other hand. My start was different. I was just looking for a place that would hire me so I could move out of my childhood bedroom.
A mom, a five-month-old, and a career built on irreverence
Katelynn has a five-month-old son right now.
She’s in that season where your calendar looks normal, but your brain is running on a rotating schedule of naps, bottles, butt wiping and dr visits.
She’s enjoying it. Like, genuinely.
In the quiet, grounded way that makes you realize: some people have figured out how to be fully in their life and fully in their work.
Which is a good segue into her work, because her whole career has lived in a particular neighborhood of marketing:
The brands that don’t act like brands.
She’s been drawn to irreverent, stand-out companies for a while—RXBAR, Vita Coco, and a lineup of others where the default setting isn’t “polished,” it’s distinct.
And when she talked about her path into strategy, it didn’t sound like someone chasing a title. It was about unlocking the full potential of brands. It’s about saying what needs to be said and embracing what makes a brand unique. We don’t fall in love with products. We fall in love with the personality, the honesty and the way the make us feel in their presence.
Sex sells is back. (And it’s not what you think.)
I asked her a simple question.
What are you noticing right now?
She answered:
“Sex sells is back.”
Then she sharpened it.
“Sex sells is back — just not in the dumb way.”
She was talking about desire.
About comfort with it.
“People still respond to desire. Brands forgot that for a while.”
She brought up a sleep product she’d recently bought:
Sleep or Die (a sleep strip you put on your tongue).
The category is typically flat, sterile, and vaguely pharmaceutical. And this brand? It chooses a lane: bold, sexy and a little dangerous.
The David effect: standing out without begging for attention
One of the brands she brought up was David Protein Bars.
It’s a packed category.
Most of the packaging is an explosion of claims.
David feels loose and smart across the board:
Billboards. TV. Events. The way they talk about themselves.
The bar sits in the hand.
It gets bitten.
Nothing is explained.
The product isn’t framed as a reward.
It’s part of the moment.
She said that kind of work makes teams nervous.
Because it doesn’t give instructions.
It’s just there.
And once you start explaining it, it breaks.
What stood out to Katelynn wasn’t just “good creative.”
It was coherence.
The kind where you can see the philosophy underneath the tactics.
Which is exactly what DUDE Wipes has, too.
“Everyone has a butt… so we’re going to be everywhere butts are.”
At some point we landed on what might be the simplest (and funniest) brand strategy I’ve heard in a while:
Everyone has a butt.
So we’re going to be everywhere butts are.
Which is… a lot of places.
It’s obvious. And that’s why it’s powerful.
Because once you accept the premise, the world opens up:
Bathrooms. Tailgates. Festivals. Stadiums. Retail aisles. TikTok. Uber rides. Anywhere embarrassment lives. Anywhere humanity shows up.
How alive and free that must be.
Most brands are still trying to earn the right to be interesting.
DUDE Wipes starts from the ASSumption that life is already ridiculous… so why pretend otherwise?
“Share of anus.”
Then Katelynn hits me with a term they use internally:
Share Of Anus
I had questions.
What she meant (in non-anatomical terms) is: households usually have more than one person… which means more than one butt… which means different buying behavior.
If you’re selling a product people use privately, you can’t just think “one buyer.” You have to think:
Who else is in the house?
Who is it really for?
How much do they go through?
Where do they buy it—Costco vs. standard retail?
It’s strategy… just cleaner.
And that’s the point: they can be serious about the business without being serious about themselves.
400+ event sponsorships in 2025
A three-person team. No one’s comfortable.
Last year, they put on 400+ events.
Her team behind it? Three people.
How exactly she does it? Not sure. Ask if you shadow her for a day.
But be prepared to change a few diapers.
That’s not “a robust experiential department.”
That’s a strike team.
We got into sports marketing—how sports fans are a different breed, and how the brand has leaned into that culture instead of trying to sanitize it.
She mentioned the Cleveland Browns partnership and all the chaos that went into it (including a giant brown helmet… because of course).
But the deeper thing underneath all of it was this:
The browns are brown and so is poop.
The Browns have an owner mentality.
They don’t like being comfortable.
And they’re always pushing into something new.
And if you’ve ever worked in a place that starts playing it safe the minute things start working… you know how rare that is.
The real differentiator: they’re comfortable in their own BUTT
DUDE Wipes knows who they are.
They know their personality.
They know their voice.
They know what they’re willing to do that other brands won’t.
And when you really know yourself, there’s freedom in it.
You don’t over-explain.
You don’t hedge.
You don’t show up like a different person depending on who you’re talking to.
Katelynn talked about the tension between having a “brand voice” and having a “retailer voice”—and how hard it can be to keep your edge once the gates open.
But DUDE Wipes has a weird superpower:
They can walk into retail and still be themselves… because being themselves is the whole product.
TikTok: The funnest place to play
She called out TikTok specifically as a place where they get “ultimate freedom.”
Not because the platform is magic.
Because the platform rewards what they already are:
Fast. Real. Funny. Human. Unbothered by perfection.
And then we hit something I think a lot of marketing teams need to hear right now:
You don’t care about the person on the other end enough to make them feel something.
Most content is made like an obligation.
Not like an offering.
DUDE Wipes makes stuff that wants to be shared because it understands the moment it’s entering.
Like serving someone an ad when you know they’re sitting on the toilet.
Is it ridiculous? Yes.
Is it real? Also yes.
Is it memorable? Obviously.
Big stunts, influencers, and the courage to not measure everything to death
We talked influencers and activations and how fun it is when you bring creators into the chaos and watch the whole thing multiply.
But what I loved most was her comfort with something that makes a lot of brands twitch:
They’re okay doing something big, memorable, and PR-worthy without forcing it into a neat little sales box.
They know it’s helping.
They’re not pretending every moment needs a direct-response receipt.
A lot of teams say they want “brand.”
Then they panic the moment brand doesn’t come with a spreadsheet-shaped hug.
The Shortcut to Real Relationship
Katelynn lives in Jefferson Park. Chicago is home base for the company, but she works mostly remote—she’s been working from home since the beginning of her career and pops into the office once or twice a month.
And she said something that stuck with me about physical space:
Some DUDES need a place to learn.
To be around people.
To absorb the stuff you don’t get on Zoom.
Different people use the office for different reasons.
What she was really talking about, I think, is this: some spaces make you stop performing.
The office—at its best—does that. You overhear things. You watch how people actually work. You pick up the stuff no one puts in a deck.
And weirdly, that’s the same truth DUDE Wipes is built on.
Because their product lives in a place we all pretend is private, even though it’s the most universal human experience there is.
Bathrooms do something to people.
They drop the act.
And that’s what their brand does too. It invites comfort fast.
Everybody has a butt. Everybody poops.
So we can skip the posturing and get to the butt hole quicker.
Why this conversation matters
Some brands pretend they don’t poop.
They put their feet up out of view the second someone walks into the bathroom.
Some don’t.
And the difference isn’t intelligence.
It’s not even confidence.
It’s the fear of being seen.
Of being caught in the most human moment.
Of being exposed.
Of being a little embarrassing in public.
DUDE Wipes doesn’t put their feet up.
DUDE Wipes poops with the door open.
And in a world full of safe, beige, committee-approved content…
Keeping your door open proper etiquette.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to poop.
Until the next deuce.
Kevin
For more on Katelynn you can find her right here
For more on myself and ASMBLY ENTERTAINMENT
When I’m not in conversation with the rare breeds shaping the future of creativity, I run ASMBLY ENTERTAINMENT where we help brands tell unforgettable stories.