Unilever Relaunches Axe with Updated Scent and New Packaging
Unilever, the maker of the male grooming brand Axe, is rolling out new packaging and improved fragrances for the brand this month in an effort to keep up interest for its core market.
The line of eight body spray fragrances now come in “sleek” new cans with a twist mechanism to release the spray, an Axe spokesperson said.
TV spots broke last week tied to a fully integrated marketing program that targets Axe’s core market, 18- to 24-year old guys.
The spots, created by BBH, show women all over the world going through their daily routines when they suddenly smell a man wearing the improved body sprays. Once they smell the fragrance, they can’t control themselves and feel compelled to blurt our “Bom Chicka Wah Wah” as a reaction to the fragrance.
A new Web site, Axebcww.com, debuts May 1 featuring a music video from the all-girl band “Bom Chicka Wah Wah’s”.
On the streets, 60-foot-tall inflatables that look like cans of body spray will appear in Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore during the next few weeks. Axe Angels (good looking young girls, of course) will be jumping on moonwalks set up in the bottoms of the inflatables, the spokesperson said.
Nationwide sampling campaigns will let guys try out the new products and see the packaging.
Axe was introduced in the U.S. in 2002 and has quickly become a popular brand in the anti-perspirant/deodorant category. It had a 17.8% market share in the fourth quarter of 2006. The firm attributes the success to the introduction of new products and new entertainment vehicles to continually surprise its customers. An average of one new fragrance in the body spray line is introduced every year as some fragrances are retired.
The new fragrances were improved with help from world-renowned fragrance expert, Ann Gottlieb, “the nose” behind some of the most successful fragrances, the Axe spokesperson said.
