Background

AXE Canada has built guys’ confidence for over 35 years by helping them look, smell, and feel their best through its personal care products. AXE speaks to guys through unique experiences, tapping into their passion points and partnering with their heroes to drive relevance. Previously, AXE focused on retaining consumers in the older end of their core target (17+ males) to prevent them from “aging out” of the brand. While this strategic shift helped AXE gain slight increased relevance with the older demographic, market research revealed it also resulted in marked declines in AXE’s relevance amongst its core audience (11-17-year-old Gen Z males). AXE also saw a decline in consumer perceptions when asked if the brand was “cool/trendy.” 

CREATIVE SOLUTION

The top gamers are driven by the quest for mastery. Now that they had achieved the highest level of achievement online, what if we introduced a new challenge that only AXE could help prepare them for – the real world. To get him to pay attention to AXE’s newest product innovation news, we knew we needed to lean into Gen Z’s passion for gaming and online content creators in a way that would grab his attention – and hold it.

We challenged 13 of Canada’s top gamers and content creators to step away from their keyboards and monitors and into a real-life battle royale that would be live streamed on Twitch, something that had never been attempted before, let alone pulled off. Keep in mind, our product launch was during COVID-19.  

STRATEGY

Working as an Integrated Agency Team, Edelman Canada proposed partnering with Canada’s top Fortnite streamer and one of the most popular streamers in the world – Nick Eh 30 – to be the star of our live-streamed battle royale. From choosing where to start in the playing field, to having to quickly scrounge and loot weapons and gear, to surviving in a shrinking game area, our participants had to translate their online gaming skills into the real world – all while the world watches live and helps to influence events from their keyboards. 

RESULTS

• Achieved 98% positive sentiment about AXE and new AXE Wild product measured through a manual audit
• Secured 13 influencers to support the campaign and distribute organic social content (In-Feed & Stories) resulting in a 10% engagement rate on Instagram
• Across organic social content, achieved 5.7M impressions, 161K engagements, 904K video views
• Achieved 20.4M paid impressions and 73.5K paid engagements across the campaign
• Completed video views resulted in 6.5K
• Achieved 15.38K total visits to our AXEProjectWild.ca landing page, with 65 total sign-ups to receive more info
• An average email open rate of 42%, across a three-phased email strategy
• Secured 60K livestream viewers throughout the activation