THE AXE EFFECT

Axe is a brand of male grooming products, owned by AngloDutch company The Axe deodorant was first launched in the year 1983 in France. It has been there in the market for the last 26 years and is currently the best-selling brand of Unilever. Axe at that time was the leading men's deodorant brand in Europe and was popular in India in the Grey market. Axe deodorant was launched in India during 1999. HUL had the brands Denim and Raxona and was ruling the market. Axe was priced at a premium above the Denim brand which was positioned as a male deodorant brand.

THE AXE EFFECT

Axe, the deodorant has Tagline The Axe Effect, promoted as the naughtiest brand in the Indian market.

The brand is targeted at male aged 16-35. All its campaigns revolve round this central theme of Seduction where girl makes the first move.

The brand assumes that Men like to be seduced and positioned as a weapon of seduction.

The Product Line of Axe Effect (Deodorant)

Java- Variant name after the Island in Indonesia Ready- Long lasting effect makes you always ready for "action", blue colored can. Willing- Long lasting effect makes you always willing for "adventure", green colored can. Conviction- If you have conviction, no woman can say no. No woman who can turn her face. Because women like men safe. Pulse- Suggests that it gives geeks added confidence so they can pull off crazy dance moves to impress girls and be irresistible Dark Temptation- A chocolate-smelling fragrance; advertising implies that because women like chocolate, they will find men who smell of chocolate irresistible Music Star Edition- It has mint flavor. New launch of Axe

SEGMENTATION
GEOGRAPHIC
Urban Semi-Urban

DEMOGRAPHIC
Age group 16 to 35. Gender Male Income group Middle& Upper Middle. Occupation Students& Bachelors.

PSYCHOGRAPHIC BEHAVIORAL
Lifestyle Outdoor-oriented Personality FashionOriented Trendy. Occasions Benefits User status Usage rate Regular Quality Economic. Regular user Medium.

TARGETING
Concentrates on single-segment (male 16-35) Targets on Young at heart. Competitive advantage of this brand is its Complete monopoly over this brand proposition. In 2007, as competition got stiffer, Axe revamped its product packaging and launched television and online campaigns. Through its ads, it persuades youngsters mind that using this deo will help to attract girls, but it is just that they present the ad using humor and made something that attracts people very easily. Its rarely found that any India centric ad for Axe is aired on Television. They believe that Indian consumers take the foreign commercials without any difficulty.

POSITIONING
The company extensively uses TV ads and conducting many Campaigns. The biggest strength of this brand is the underlying message that the Brand users are High on Confidence and always go for the Axe. It also ensures that customers are constantly engaged with new Fragrances, in 2005, Axe had a profile launch of its new fragrance CLICK. The brand has started its Internet based marketing initiative in India with Axe Land which involved a virtual trip to the Axe world using link theaxeeffect.com. Its marketing strategy is always known as "Adventurous Marketing Because this brand deals with girls and seduction. But anyway it is in the safer zone even in case of markets like India.

POSITIONING
Besides TV commercials,the brand also uses print ads with Polaroid photos to its maximum impact. Axe is a classic example of global branding effort. Through this effort Of campaigning they have created a huge global image. It conducted a contest to win a trip to Las Vegas in October. For that, Online banner ads pushed guys to play the online game and enter the contest. Axe commercials are also a big hit on YouTube. Wholesale distributors reported that Axe body spray led the men's Grooming category in 2007. The axe deodorant contain in stylish bottle, Because of the packaging, it can be easily recognized. The packaging of axe itself has created brand image for it.

COMMUNICATION PROCESS

Promotion Mix
INTEGRATED MASS COMMUNICATION

ADVERTISING

SALES PROMOTION

PUBLIC RELATION

INTARECTIVE MARKETING

AD

TV ADS

PRINT ADS

Promotion is an important part of marketing mix. Through promotion company communicate with the consumers ABOUT THEIR PRODUCT. To communicate with the consumers company spends heavily on advertisements and promotional activities. ADVERTISING: To weave the axe brand into the culture the company extensively uses television advertisements. e.g to promote its Dark Temptation flavor they showed an ad in which a boy who has used Axe deo is passing by the roadside and all the girls around are getting attracted by the chocolate fragrance of the deo. SALES PROMOTION TOOLS: Discount: To increase the sale in India the company has slashed down the price of 150ml bottle from Rs.150 to Rs.125. Offer: The company also provide 20% extra in most of the varieties of Axe to provide more to their customers. They also promote through online gaming available on their site.

Promotion of Axe Effect

Advertising TV commercials, print ads and billboards, AXE has tried to attract people with its humor. e.g New launch of Axe effect is Music Star, Chocolate Man

Interactive Marketing Dedicated website-www.theaxeeffect.com for promotion. Advertisements of AXE are visible all over the web in relevant and web social networking sites like Face book, Orkut, Hi5 etc

Games and mobile application AXE effect games launched in 2009 Axe effect mobile applications for more promotion

Promotion of Axe Effect

Events and Experiences AXE organizes upbeat events for its new product launches and it follows this strategy worldwide. Axe has sponsored a wide range of other events like youth festivals, music shows Publicity Getting the girl has never been easier, thanks to the AXE effect. Axe has the right storytelling element and the video reinforces the brand's provocative and contrarian personality. It has always projected its products as cool, fashionable and stylish Word of Mouth Marketing A good product also requires a good promotion strategy. AXE ad campaigns have always been the talk of the town.

Campaigns as part of promotion CALL ME Targeted at the young urban male, the cool and youthful brand is positioned as one that helps guys get ahead in the mating game. The new campaign, launched in early March showed girls swooning over Axe men and giving them their telephone numbers. Both films end with the girls giving the boys the number 09987333333. Through a series of ads in print, outdoors and television, viewers are being encouraged to call this very same number.

AXE CLICK CAMPAIGN The axe undertook the click campaign in 2006 to promote its new fragrance CLICK. It was a pan-global campaign which was mainly targeted at young males. Their main objective was to start a social phenomenon called Clicking. This campaign was implemented in two phases. In the first phase a small teaser site with the name of www.clickmore.com was launched.

Axe Ads\Tv Ad - Axe Dark Temptation_ Chocolate Man.mp4 Chocolate Month Of The Year- Nov08 Axe launched another campaign in November 2008 to promote its new variant Axe Dark Temptation in India. It was undertaken in association with Yahoo. It was 24 hour online campaign in which a dark man was placed in the centre of the www.yahoo.co.in homepage on 14th November. This campaign was mainly used to capture the attention of the young internet users who visited the Yahoo webpage This campaign again highlights the importance of internet as a medium of communication especially if the target audience is young.

New Extra Strong Axe

MASSAGE STRATEGY
The massage strategy of axe is of two types:

Sensory: Seduction: In its each and every ad, Axe conveys the massage that after using this Deo the girls will attract towards all the boys and men who will use AXE.

Rational: Experience in use & experience after use: It focuses on the benefit of usage of the product by the customer at Past and Present.

CREATIVE STRATEGY
Transformational Appeals: The creative strategy of axe is transformational because, it indicates that after using the Deo a boy or a men will get the power to seduce and attract the girls. That is, it is showing the Transformational effect of using the product.

MASSAGE SOURCE
The massage source of this deo is not any celebrity but the common girls who are the desire of any common boy or a men.

CONCLUTION
Through this project we came to know about various important aspects of promotional mix and know that how one of the leading brand of deodorant AXE, promote its product and tries to retain its customers through: advertisement, public relation, interactive marketing and sales promotion, which is very important for any brand to maintain its good position in the market.

Thank You