The Axe Call Me campaign is an advertisement
campaign that was launched in Asia in 2008 and was based on the theme of
attraction between members of the opposite sex. As Chamikutty (2009) observes,
the advertisement was designed to play on the ultimate male fantasy which is to
be an attraction to women. It targeted young men across Asia using a campaign
designed to encourage participation and engagement with the brand. The strategy
and impact are the focus of this analytical report.
Axe deodorant is designed for use by young
men. The marketing campaign was therefore targeting this market segment. This
was defined as the ordinary young man, the ordinary young man, who is projected
as having an uncanny ability to attract young women after applying Axe
deodorant (Sharma and Kozhikode, 2011).
For effective targeting, the target has
to be large enough, have identifiable preferences and lifestyles, and be able
to be reached through a customised advertisement (Sasieni, 1989). Effective
targeting must also involve a clear understanding of the characteristics of the
target market and how such characteristics can be tapped to generate demand
(Gal-Or, Gal-Or, May and Spangler, 2006). The Axe Call Me campaign sought to
explain the natural fantasy associated with young men in their desire to be
attractive to the opposite sex (Ashish, 2014).
The brilliance of the Axe Call Me
campaign was in its ability to present the ordinary young man as sexy. This
meant that they did not have to strive to be something they are not in order to
conform to the brand personality being projected. This made them reachable
hence the targeting approach can be said to be well founded.
Engagement and participation were the
primary goals of this campaign (Sharma and Kozhikode, 2011). While the ultimate
goal of the advertising was to promote the consumption of Axe, the campaign was
interactive in nature with no immediate need for the target audience to
purchase the product. The implementation process was a highly interactive one
where the numbers displayed were actually functional and when called, the
callers were engaged in an exciting seductive game that could see some win
gifts such as iPads and iPhones (Sharma and Kozhikode, 2011). This was in
addition to the Axe wake up service and the offer of Axe ringtones which
furthered involvement with the brand (Venkatraman, 2010). This is clear from
the execution and focus on engaging the audience in direct communication as
discussed in the sections below.
Like other business objectives, advertising
objectives must be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and
time-specific (Doganoglu and Klapper, 2006). The suitability of the objectives
for the Axe Call Me campaign can be gauged based on these metrics. The
objective was very specific in its target for engagement and participation.
Even though this was to help raise revenues, the objective was clear in its
focus to create a strong connection with the brand. Measurability is relatively
easy to determine as the reaction to a marketing campaign and the impact on
sales volume is easy to tell (Doganoglu and Klapper, 2006). No specific targets
were put on the level of engagement and consumer participation that was
expected hence it would be difficult to gauge whether such an objective was
achieved. Nevertheless, the finding that this campaign generated more voice
data than any brand has ever done in Asia is a sufficient indicator that the
objective was achieved in a quantifiable term (Sharma and Kozhikode, 2011).
Being realistic means that it needs to conform to certain norms and are an idea
that would be easily adopted by the market albeit after substantial investments
(Belch and Belch, 2013). By capitalising on a natural fantasy that is inherent
in the target audience, the young men, the objective can be termed as realistic
in its quest to turn this fantasy into a viable marketing idea. From these
considerations, the Axe Call Me campaign objective can be rated as well founded
and very strategic for the organisation.
The idea projected by the advertisements
was that using axe makes the young men very attractive to young girls (Ashish,
2014). It would therefore act as the magnet that would get girls to share their
contacts with the young men and request to be given a call. The campaign sought
to advance the sex-theme that characterises beauty products without being
offensive to the Asian culture upheld by the target market (Sayal, 2009). The
dating culture in Asia was researched and found to be significantly different
from that in Western cultures. While it is acceptable for sensational sexual
images to be published in the West, such an approach is frowned upon and even
outlawed in some Asian cultures. In Asia, the dating process starts with the
exchange of mobile phone numbers where a girl expresses the willingness to be
involved further by accepting to share her phone number (Venkatraman, 2010).
The objective of this advertisement campaign was to creatively attract young
male customers by making them feel more appealing to the opposite sex.
For an advertisement to be effective, it
has to have a creative idea that the target audience is likely to find
interesting and easy to adopt (El-Murad and West, 2003). The creative concept
in this campaign was its ability to turn a natural fantasy into an exciting
marketing idea while conforming to the conservative nature of the target
audience’s culture. A creative idea is new to the market and unique in the
sense that it exploits a concept that is either new or has never been exploited
in a similar way before (Walker and Mullins, 2011). The Axe campaign idea was
the first of its kind in the Asian region, having exploited an idea that was
inherent in the society, but never brought out as sensationally or in a
commercial context as Unilever did.
The marketing campaign was preceded by a
good public relations campaigns which brought to life ‘Numberitis’, a fictional
disease associated with the need for young men to get girls to share their
phone contacts with them. This was after a research was conducted on young
girls who intimated that they’d be willing to exchange their contacts on their
first meeting with a guy if they found him attractive. The exchange of numbers
here would signify that the young men had been found attractive and the girls
were interested in them.
The PR exercise was followed by the
launch of the advertisements which was done through television, outdoor
advertisement, and online video and posters (Sayal, 2009). The campaign was
consistent in its message of girls giving out numbers asking to be called by
young men they’d found attractive after applying Axe deodorants. This was given
under different circumstances: ketchup inside a loaf and the being blown on a
window among other ways. The number given was 09987333333; which customers
would call and be greeted sexy voices of girls dubbed Axe angels (Venkatraman,
2010). In one of the TV adverts, a young man would be cited making an order
from an attractive waitress who is taken in by the fragrance of his Axe
deodorant (Twnmba888, 2008). She’d then use tomato source to scribble her name
on the ketchup ordered and ask him to call her later.
When the number was called, the typical
conversation would start as follows: “Hi, My name is Tanya. If I think you have
the Axe effect you could win some great prizes like an iPod or, hey, even the
latest iPhone” (Venkatraman, 2010). The girl Tanya would then proceed with a
few naughty questions which the callers would respond to in a bid to seduce her.
This direct interaction campaign would extend to an Axe wake up service in
which the girls would offer free wake-up services at a predetermined time for
about a week (Venkatraman, 2010). The aim of this was to solidify the
connection between the target audience and the brand. This was enhanced by the
provision of Axe ringtones which were available for free download over the
internet.
Good execution of an advertising
campaign must be flawless and designed in a manner to ensure that there is
synergy where one aspect of implementation reinforces the others. This
simulates the building process where every activity or implementation stage
acts as the foundation for the next with the overall success being dependent on
the success of the cumulative steps. The execution of the Axe Call Me campaign
started with a PR exercise that introduced the dating process in a new way.
This turned the topic of ‘Numberitis’ into a hot topic detailing how the
ability of a young man to attract women was manifested in their willingness to share
their numbers (Ashish, 2014). It was then followed by the advertising campaign
involving advertisements on television, radio, print media, outdoor
advertisements and the internet (Bhatnaturally, 2009). This was followed by an
interactive phase involving calling, wakeup call services, and provision of Axe
ringtones to the customers. The execution was systematic and deliberate with an
aim of ensuring that engagement and participation are as high as possible.
Media channel design is the process of
selecting the means through which marketing communications can be relayed
effectively to the target audience (Gudonavičienė and Alijošienė, 2008).
Different media channels attract specific audiences and also impact them
differently. By coming up with a marketing channel mix, the organisation is
able to increase visibility and appeal to the target audience in different ways
(Castaldo, Grosso and Premazzi, 2013). An important consideration in media
planning is the fact that the target audience assimilates a message when they
encounter it more times. Where the target audience consumes more than one media
at a time, a multi-channel approach is used. The Axe Call Me campaign was
designed to ensure that the target audience encounters the message wherever
they are, and where possible; many times in a day.
The advertisements were done on
television, radio, print media, and outdoor advertisements (Ashish, 2014). The
subsequent success of the campaign was an indication that the Asian market is a
multichannel market where effectiveness is achieved by ensuring that a campaign
is covered across many channels. Media planning must also factor in the
objectives of the advertisement campaign (Van Bruggen et al, 2010; Shaw, 2012).
Advertisements on television, radio, print media, and outdoor advertisements
involve a passive audience. Since this campaign targeted engagement and
participation, use of telephone calls in the interactive phase was necessary.
This is the phase that marked the success of the campaign by encouraging
engagement and creating a bond between the audience and the brand.
In spite of the campaign’s
effectiveness, the media channel design can be faulted for failing to execute a
social media strategy in the advertisement. The target audience comprised of
young men who are likely to be highly attracted to the internet (Hill, 2013).
The company concentrated on offline approaches to communication with the
internet only serving the purpose of access to the Axe ringtones which the
company was offering the audience.
The success of a marketing campaign is
gauged on its rate of achieving the objectives set out. In this campaign, the
objective was to build the brand through a campaign that drives engagement and
participation. While it involved advertisements on mass media, it is the
interactive phase that was most central to the campaign’s objectives. The
results indicate that objective was achieved. The campaign generated over
4.4million calls with 40% of the callers making multiple calls hence becoming
the highest generator of voice data in Asia by a single brand (Spikes Asia,
2009). In terms of revenue, the campaign is credited for an increase of
revenues by 40%. The popularity of the ringtones was also remarkable with
40,000 ringtones being downloaded in the duration of the Axe Call Me campaign
and over 700,000 Axe wake up calls being made (Bhatnaturally, 2009). The
company’s shares are also believed to have grown by 3.2% as a result of the
campaign (Drypen, 2010). The campaign can therefore be rated as being highly
effective in terms of achieving the goals set and creating and implementing a
creative idea. Nevertheless, the popularity of the internet among young people leads
to the assumption that a greater buzz would have been generated by implementing
an effective social media strategy.
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