Insight
The trend of male body grooming had been growing and growing in recent years around the world. At time of briefing, 48% of men worldwide were practicing body grooming due to aesthetics, hygiene, or partner request. However, only 37% of men in Latin America were body groomers, because of masculinity taboos.
Those taboos, were equally responsible for the low body grooming rate, and the lack of conversations about how to do it properly. Therefore, the few body groomers were not choosing the right tool - they were shaving their body with the same razor as on their face.
Gillette needed to first change perceptions about body grooming bringing taboos down and grow the share of males grooming. Additionally, MediaCom needed to build awareness of Gillette Body as the right tool to do it.
Strategy
Professional Sports men and their professional careers are avidly followed by men, who often idealise them, and certainly heed their advice, becoming key influencers. Athletes are admired for their displays of skill, endurance, determination; and of course their bodies. However, to achieve those levels of excellence, they need to take care of their bodies, and for some professional athletes, body grooming is a must that facilitates much of their training.
Therefore, MediaCom’s strategy was to raise awareness of the fact that most of the ultimate athletes, are body groomers. This being an essential part of their professional preparation, and very open and comfortable about it.
And what better way to do it than by showcasing their actually naked and groomed bodies, showing how they take care of them in order to achieve sporting excellence.
However, getting sport athletes to share their image with a brand is often costly, and commercial messaging is less influential than editorial one. So the agency needed to work with a Sports outlet to facilitate the campaign and ensure Gillette Body would have a fully integrated association with body grooming and sports.
It worked with ESPN as a leading sports conglomerate with ample credibility on the field of sports which offered an ideal platform to distribute Gillette Body message and identified its periodic online e-magazine as the perfect place to host the content. But it would need further content and points of engagement to make sure Gillette reached the relevant consumer substantially.
Execution
Together, Gillette Body & ESPN launched the first ever ESPN Magazine Body Issue for the region showcasing 21 brave Latin American athletes proudly displaying their athletic bodies, making men see the benefits of a groomed body. Alongside the stylish, eye-opening photos of the athletes, the 40 pages edition was fully owned by Gillette Body, with commercial message and editorial integration showcasing the benefits of the razor.
To spread the word about the Body Issue by Gillette Body, a multimedia campaign was launched across all ESPN’s platforms which included the production of custom pieces for Gillette Body. The activation included:
- Editorial integrations into ESPN’s collection of studio show programming, including the region’s #1 sports news and information show, SportsCenter. Participating athletes made appearances to discuss their experience with the initiative, as well as to discuss the importance of their bodies for their respective sports.
- 10 versions of custom on-air cobranded capsules teasing the launch of the magazine issue, and driving downloads. Featuring sneak peeks of some of the participating athletes. Cut down versions for digital pre-rolls across ESPN’s properties, YouTube and Facebook.
- Other co-branded activations across other digital and social media, as well as a PR push to trade and consumer press.
Results
Gillette Body awareness metrics dramatically improved by increasing 200% in Unaided Brand Awareness and 109% in Aided Brand Awareness.
Sales were positively impacted with a 61% increase in Blades and Razors category share during the campaign period.
And the ESPN Body Issue Latin America was downloaded over 330% more times than the average ESPN Magazine issue. The PR campaign for the promotion gained over 1.1 million coverage views across the region.