2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Axe, the men’s deodorant also known in western markets as Lynx, knew that their target audience was evolving and to protect their brand would have to as well to reflect this. Axe had in many ways been victims of their own success, after more than a decade of consistently excellent campaigns, their current proposition as a lightning rod for ‘lad culture’ dating mores was deeply engrained in the popular cultural psyche. How then could Axe engineer a subtle but convincing shift away from their rich brand heritage to better reflect the more highly-evolved mind-set of their new consumer?

Results and Effectiveness

We generated a massive 6,385 music track from several hundred bands/artists were uploaded onto the bringthequiet.com website, the majority (over 2/3’s) were driven there via Anghami, the music streaming platform we sponsored and in total we reached over 10.9m people. We 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, our “Are known to have best fragrances” attribute grew from 55 to 58, while our “make you feel attractive to others” went from 49 to 57. 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.

Creative Execution

We partnered with Anghami, the most popular music streaming service in the region, to deliver a crowd-sourced new-music platform called ‘Bring the Quiet’. Living on an online hub, ‘Bring the Quiet’ encouraged budding musical artists to upload their latest tracks, listeners could then get involved and vote for their favourites. Both routes were widely communicated across Instagram, You Tube, Facebook and Twitter, including high-impact You Tube Masthead formats, crucial to cut-through with our new positioning. Music related search terms, mobile content and a smart re-marketing approach ensured we reached the perfect audience.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our 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 our consumers’ mindset. The way our audience went about attracting the opposite sex had radically altered since the advent of dating apps such as Tinder, rendering our 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.