Selleys Undo Glue: The Psychology of a Reversible Bond
Selleys Undo Glue flips the permanent-bond promise into a demo of clean removal—and a behavioural lesson in loss aversion and fresh starts.
The ad in one paragraph
Selleys has spent decades as the brand Australians trust to make things stick. Its new Undo Glue campaign, created with Howatson+Company, flips that promise: it is a strong-hold adhesive you can remove cleanly without damage. The film follows a home through changing life stages—sports memorabilia making way for a nursery, a cuckoo clock that goes up and comes down, everyday hooks and a cat-claimed hanging basket—before a hand twists a hook off the wall. The tagline lands the mechanism: “Stop. Twist. Undo. Now you get it.”
The levers it pulls
Three behavioural principles do the heavy lifting.
- Loss aversion. Permanent glue carries a hidden cost: the risk of damaged walls, lost deposits or a bad decision you cannot reverse. The film repeatedly shows items being removed without leaving a mark, which reduces the perceived pain of choosing wrong.
- The fresh start effect. People are more open to change around life transitions. The film’s life-stage vignettes—nursery, sporting wall, a clock that was a mistake—make redecorating feel like a natural act of identity, not a risk.
- Concrete demonstration. The product does the talking. The visual of a hook twisting off cleanly, repeated until it feels obvious, turns an abstract claim into a simple physical move viewers can imagine doing themselves.
Together they reframe glue from a commitment device into a reversible decision.
What it does for the brand
Selleys already owns the promise that if it is Selleys, it works. Undo Glue extends that trust to the part nobody talks about: taking things down. It lets the brand stay relevant across a home’s life, not just at the moment of installation. The result is a more flexible, modern Selleys—one that understands homes change as life changes, and that confidence can mean undoing a choice as much as making one.
What to borrow for your next campaign
Find the hidden fear in your category and reverse it. For glue, that fear is not falling down; it is the wall damage and the permanence. Then make the reversal visible.
- Name the fear your product’s promise has been ignoring.
- Show the removal, not just the hold—demonstrate the outcome people are worried about.
- Anchor the product to life transitions so it feels emotionally relevant.
- Turn the benefit into a short physical ritual, like “Stop. Twist. Undo.”
If your demo makes the risk disappear on screen, the sale happens before the claim is said.
Watch the original: Selleys on YouTube
Source: Campaign Brief
