Friends Forever

Rexona Teens aimed to re-launch the new variant F4E (Friends Forever) in Brazil during the 2009 Q2 (April, June, July).

Recognising that teenage girls seek the validation of their peers when approaching new fashions and trends, Rexona decided the best way to communicate their brand message for their new Friends Forever product was to work with the female teen market affinity with social networks and sharing.

Rexona talked to teens about their best friends offline through events and online, through social media platforms and in the Rexona Teens masterbrand platform. All teenage girls share the same problems and uncertainties, so they can understand each other’s feelings.

With this in mind, Rexona’s Friends Forever campaign was based in the moments best friends have together and in the empathy they share. The big idea was to produce a 30-minute movie about three girls who travel alone in pursuit of their dreams of fame.

One of these girls would be a Rexona Teens consumer, selected in an online casting. The movie would also be broadcast by MTV video DJs, and it featured Fresno, a well-known teenage Brazilian band. The movie was produced in partnership with MTV and Capricho, the main magazine title for the teenage girls in Brazil.

Rexona announced the open casting in the media asking teenage girls if they wanted to be the star of a movie. Participants could download the scripts from the Rexona website by heart, and record their own casting video and submit it to Youtube. The next part of the casting was held in MTV studios in Sao Paulo.

The second phase of the project prepared the girls for their characters. They spent one week in MTV rehearsing the story before shooting. The whole process was broadcast in TV spots, and the website also featured “behind the scenes” footage. Real time character updates appeared in social media, such as photos on Flickr, Tweets and other blog posts.

The movie was released in a preview - during school vacations. Rexona invited the girls who were registered in the website. The event took place in one of the biggest malls in Sao Paulo. The three girls who were in the movie attended, as well as MTV personalities, and the band, Fresno, for an autograph signing night. The full movie also was aired as part of the MTV schedule and on Youtube.

During the campaign, the analytics of the website shows a five-time increase in the volume of visits. The Youtube video achieved 80.000 views. For the casting, in one month, more than 8 thousand girls downloaded the script, almost 400 sent their cast videos to Youtube and 30 were selected to the next phase in MTV.