Insight
Axe, the men’s deodorant also known in western markets as Lynx, could see its target audience was evolving and to protect its brand would have to change too.
Axe had in many ways been a victim of its own success, after more than a decade of consistently excellent campaigns, its current proposition as a lightning rod for ‘lad culture’ and dating attraction was deeply ingrained in the popular cultural psyche.
How then could Axe engineer a subtle but convincing shift away from its rich brand heritage to better reflect the more highly-evolved mind-set of the new consumer?
Strategy
Consumers were mobile natives, and because of this mobile platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat championed a focus away from lad culture towards Visual Storytelling.
As such, people’s image and interests were more important than ever and Music, Fashion and Experiences dominated consumers’ feeds and mindset.
The way this audience went about attracting the opposite sex had radically altered since the advent of dating apps such as Tinder, rendering the brand's previous creative direction obsolete.
Cool used to be boasting about taking home the pretty girl from the party, now it is bragging about discovering an underground bands latest track.
Execution
Music, like the mobile device it sits on, is highly personal so PHD knew that it had to proceed incredibly cautiously.
Music, streamed through its audience’s smartphones, is held, in some cases literally, close to their hearts. PHD needed to ensure that any brand activation was done with the authenticity that is the litmus test for brands operating in this sacrosanct arena.
It partnered with Anghami, the most popular music streaming service in the region, to deliver a crowdsourced new-music platform called ‘Bring the Quiet’.
Living on an online hub, ‘Bring the Quiet’ encouraged budding musical artists to record and upload their latest tracks, listeners could then get involved and vote for their favourites.
Both routes were widely communicated across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, including high-impact YouTube Masthead formats, crucial to cut-through with the new positioning.
Music related search terms, mobile content and a smart re-marketing approach ensured it reached the perfect audience.
Supporting this ‘on the ground’ were a series of activations and live music events which brought some of the talent sourced during the Anghami partnership to fans.
Results
The campaign reached over 10.9 million people across the region on digital media alone, and the high level of affinity led to impressive business results.
It succeeded in increasing market share from 14.3% to 16% market share in the launch months, and AXE Black becoming the number one selling variant of AXE in UAE (2.8% Market share out of total deodorants).
Also, its “Are known to have best fragrances” attribute grew from 55 to 58, while “make you feel attractive to others” went from 49 to 57.
The campaign generated a massive 6,385 music tracks from several hundred bands/artists uploaded onto the bringthequiet.com website, the majority (over two thirds) were driven there via Anghami, the music streaming platform Axe sponsored.
The sponsored playlists were also very popular with the ‘Dance & Romance by AXE’ generating 180,000 followers, followed by Arabic Pop (37,000 followers) and ‘Alternative Arabic’ (20,000 followers).
The success of the platform is such that it is still being developed by Unilever and the brand has since executed live events (gigs) which have brought to life the association further, using the initial launch campaign focused on music as its springboard.