Tim Jones, Priyanka Kanse, Ben Shaw, John Jones, Ed Booty and Irina Pessin Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Entrant, IPA Effectiveness Awards, 2012
Axe / Lynx: Inspiration from above - A fresh approach to a global product launch Tim Jones, Priyanka Kanse, Ben Shaw, John Jones, Ed Booty and Irina Pessin Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Entrant, IPA Effectiveness Awards, 2012
Axe / Lynx: Inspiration from above product launch
A fresh approach to a global
Principal authors: Tim Jones, Priyanka Kanse, Ben Shaw, John Jones, Ed Booty, BBH; Irina Pessin, Data2Decisions Contributing authors: James Sheard and Thomas Gwin, BBH 1. BACKGROUND This is a story about AXE1, known as LYNX in the UK. AXE is a global cross-category grooming brand, encompassing deodorant, anti-perspirant, shower and hair products. Deodorant is the core product, making up approximately 75% of AXE turnover2. This paper focuses on AXE's deodorant business alone. When we talk about the AXE brand, we are doing so within the scope of AXE's deodorant business across variants3. The deodorant business is the best representation of how the overall business is performing4. It is also common to every market, whereas other elements of the product mix have different levels of distribution in different markets5. The sample of markets on which this paper is focused are France, Germany, Spain, UK, US, Brazil and Mexico. Their performance is a fair representation of the broader global story6. They also represent a spectrum of market types7. Being the biggest markets8, they together represent 54% of AXE's value sales. The deodorant market The global deodorant market is worth 14bn annually9. The category is dominated by unisex brands such as Rexona/Sure and Nivea, as well as female-only brands such as Secret, Palmolive and Sanex10. AXE is one of the few brands to focus solely on men. Despite only targeting half