Double Pits To Chesty

Axe wanted to increase body spray penetration by educating guys aged 15-24 on the correct use of Axe (spraying the product under your arms and across your chest). Research had shown that there were high levels of misunderstanding and misuse of the product – guys would spray it over their clothes rather than on their skin or over their entire body.

Axe needed to demonstrate that its body spray keeps you from smelling bad and makes you smell great.

Axe’s core aim is to help guys who want to make the most of being young, male and single and get the edge in the “mating game”. The core insight was that guys love learning moves – be it a new skateboard trick, a slam dunk or unlocking a new gaming move. Something in their competitive nature makes them want to be the first to pull it off. So Axe created the ridiculous move of “double pits to chesty” to demonstrate how to apply body spray and boost sex appeal. The move was rolled out in a few phases.

Firstly Axe worked with three gaming partners to create PC advergames, and iPod Touch application and a branded character (Smooth Jarvis) in one of Sony’s PlayStation games, PAIN. The aim was to integrate the DPTC move into games so guys could try it themselves. Successful execution of the move would be rewarded with girl affirmation. To further extend reach, the online games were syndicated across multiple gaming sites. A branded video ran as pre-roll prior to each free advergame to show guys the DPTC before they were able to attempt the move in game. Additionally Axe brand channels with custom skins were created to maximize impact and further drive game-plays. A Facebook version of a PC game was developed, so guys could challenge their friends to execute more moves. For PAIN gamers, a competition was created to see who could perform the most impressive move, submitting videos onto YouTube. Media buys were critical to drive game-plays. Negotiations yielded partner guarantees of minimum number of game-plays.

Across three advergames there were more than 4 million game-plays, with more than10 million moves executed and 6.5 mins average game-play per session. There were some 200,000 downloads of the Smooth Jarvis character in the Pain game and 1.7m iPod game plays.
According to Interpret research, understanding increased from 34% of respondents (from a control sample of gamers who did not play the games) to peak 56% amongst gamers who played Axe advergames.