Axe triggers chocolate fever on the Indian web space

HUL’s deodorant brand continues to elicit playful fantasies in men in its new online campaign

MUMBAI: “Finally, men can buy a bottle of liquid that, when sprayed on their bodies, makes them smell like chocolate. I can’t think of anything more seductive on a steamy beach in the south of France than smelling like a fat child who has made a big messy-messy with his candy bar.”
—Patton Oswalt,
a blogger on MySpace

This blog-post sort of sums up how Axe deodorant’s new fragrance has earned mindshare amongst consumers:

When Axe, Unilever’s deodorant body spray, launched its chocolate-flavoured Dark Temptations, the insight was easy to decipher — woman can’t resist chocolates; so they wouldn’t be able to resist a chocolaty-smelling man, too.

And what Axe did a few days ago on some of India’s highest ranked websites was a reaffirmation of its positioning — spray this all over you, and you’ll get the girl.

The advertising blitzkrieg for Axe’s new online campaign, which was unleashed for 24 hours on November 11, was one of the biggest on the Indian web.

Some of India’s leading websites saw an animated guy — a chocolate boy rather —  crisscrossing their home pages, enticing users to visit an Axe-branded website to get a bar of chocolate for free, which could be gifted to a woman.  A television campaign also went on air, asking viewers to SMS on a shortcode.

Mindshare Fulcrum, the media planning agency for Axe, booked ad space on websites such as Yahoo India, Zapak, MSN India and Rediff for 24 hours allowing no other advertiser to put their banners across the home page.

It’s what online marketers call a ‘roadblock’, meaning the web user had no other choice but to wait and watch the chocolate boy’s antics unfold and click on him.

And when he did (Axe surely hoped it was a ‘he’), the text and links on these home pages changed to information about chocolates and the web user was further directed to a new Axe-branded website. At this site, apart from ordering a free chocolate, he could also download sensuous wallpapers, screensavers and more — all in sync with the brand imagery.

Atit Mehta, manager-media services of Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), which owns Axe, said about 50,000 lucky women could win these chocolates.

“Each chocolate is shaped like the boy you saw in the first part of the campaign, which unfolded two months back on TV,” he said.

This first part of this campaign faced the axe, literally, on charges of “obscenity.”
HUL’s playing the second phase of the campaign safer. “Certain ‘objectionable’ portions of the ad have been removed and replaced with a 5 second addition, inviting users to SMS on a shortcode if they wanted to gift a chocolate,” Mehta said.

Online experts said the new online campaign was a smarter bet, especially for a brand like Axe, since there were negligible chances of bureaucrats in the information and broadcasting ministry sounding the alarm over obscenity  on websites.

Choc-a-bloc
Axe unveiled a new online campaign for 24 hours on November 11

Mindshare Fulcrum, the media planning agency for Axe, road-blocked websites such as Yahoo India, Zapak, MSN India and Rediff for 24 hours allowing no other advertiser to put their banners across the home page

Some of India’s leading websites saw an animated guy — a chocolate boy rather —  crisscrossing their home pages, enticing users to visit an Axe-branded website to get a bar of chocolate for free, which could be gifted to a woman

The chocolate boy directed netizens to a new Axe-branded website

At this site, apart from ordering a free chocolate, visitors could also download sensuous wallpapers (pictured), screensavers and more — all in sync with the brand imagery

c_arcopol@dnaindia.net