Axe
Situation
Unilever’s Axe brand had two prerogatives for the launch of its Detailer Shower Tool in December 2008. The first was to reach out directly to its core demographic of trend-conscious 18-34 year old men. The second was to maintain its hip reputation as an early adopter of new technology.
Approach
To address both of these needs, Axe teamed up with Greystripe, a mobile advertiser, to run a month-long campaign designed specifically for iPhones. The campaign centered on a Flash-run game that was embedded in the Greystripe mobile ad network. Axe had previously run the ad – “Dirty Night Determinator” – online. The “Dirty Night Determinator” game allowed users to calculate how dirty their night out would get and linked users to a YouTube video of the Detailer TV ad.
Results
Within the first two weeks of the campaign, 2,447 people were exposed to the Axe mobile advertisement, and, of those, 126 played the game, according to ComScore metrics. Consumer intent to purchase Axe deodorant rose by 15%, to 74%, with people who played the game on their iPhones.
–Lauren Bell
POM Wonderful
Approach
POM Wonderful approached digital marketing firm Fanscape to target bloggers and get them to participate and spread the word about a fall online recipe contest. Fanscape focused on key influencers within food and recipe blog networks.
Results
The effort generated more than 700,000 unique views, exceeding goals by 152%. In addition, the daily blog posts about the POM Wonderful brand doubled from the amount seen before the campaign.
–Dianna Dilworth
Wiley Publishing
Approach
HipCricket, a mobile marketing agency, worked with Wiley Publishing, the publisher of the For Dummies series of how-to books, on a mobile campaign in March 2008. Banner ads ran on the Sprint/Nokia network driving to Wiley’s WAP site. Offers included a text-for-coupon initiative and the option to join Wiley’s text club.
Results
The ads produced more than 1.3 million impressions and a 1.4% click-through rate. The opt-in rate for future marketing opportunities was 34%.
–Nathan Golia
Private View
Julie Petroski, VP, Group Creative Director, Targetbase
The naughty folks at Axe don’t disappoint with their snicker-worthy “Dirty Night Determinator” ad selling the Axe Detailer Shower Tool. It’s a simple execution that’s certainly appropriate for an online gaming environment, but here’s where channel plus technology extends the wow factor: These ads only appear on the iPhone and they are the iPhone’s only Flash ads. And all a lustful iPhone gamer needs to do is interact with the ad to see how dirty his evening will get. (If only it were that easy, gentlemen.) Kudos to Axe for having the huevos to command “Get all your guy parts clean.”
You’ve have to be a dummy (or live in a cave) not to recognize the “Dummies” brand when you see it, either online or offline. The familiar highlighter yellow color with black accents and big-eyed brainiac illustration are carried over effortlessly from the books to the Web. It’s not particularly innovative, but all of the work telegraphs the Dummies’ promise of making learning easy and continues to build the brand.
Feel like a pomegranate? Pomwonderful.com has gotten the word out on the superpower qualities of the seedy fruit and the comic book style graphics on the Web site certainly get the point across visually. It’s fun—and pretty cool that POM hasn’t taken the ultra-serious approach when it comes to the benefits of antioxidants (at least on the home page).
