Month: February 2013

Unilever’s wildly successful, research driven and slightly scandalous marketing campaign has thoroughly captured the novice male consumer and promoted a sexy brand that has not only secured a halo effect for future brand buying with the males of this generation, but is now winning over their girlfriends.

Axe quickly became the No. 1 male brand in the total antiperspirant/deodorant category, earning Unilever $71 million in sales…($50 million more than its closest rival, Tag) and $186 million (excluding Walmart sales) in 2007, an increase of 14 percent from a year  earlier — which was leagues ahead of its nearest rival.¹

But has Axe done too good a job at ‘tapping’ the market?

Research confirmed that young males are basically horny-nothing new here-but the Unilever market researchers also ”…isolated six psychological profiles of the male animal — and the potential Axe user…”.¹ Equipped with this intelligence, Axe set about exploiting the ultimate guy fantasy of being irresistible to not just one adoring female, but a flock of sexy, mesmerized women. An unassuming waft of tantalizing Axe body spray can secure scrawny neophyte males mobs of oober attractive bikini clad Amazonian women, as long as the winds were favorable.

Axe’s early ads were so funny, so evocative and so successful at transforming the nerdy college dweeb that the brand took a sales hit because Axe essentially became the brand for ‘losers’. The nimble team at Unilever managed to broaden its pitch however, enabling them to win over the larger college male populace.

However, having so thoroughly grabbed the attention of its consuming male audience, it has also grabbed the attention of a few girlfriends screaming sexism.

From washing dirty balls to headless busty caricatures, Axe has pushed a few limits. Objectifying women has become a negative for Axe but the dexterous marketing team are again adapting. With a 74% share of the male deodorant and body product market, Axe is now going after the girlfriends.

Axe recently launched ‘Anarchy’ for men and women. The hilarious pitch has men and women wreaking mayhem as they roam the streets, randomly setting trees ablaze with their pheromone heat and triggering multi-car pile ups. It seems anything men can do, women can do better and this approach seems to be calming some of the sexist uprising.

Sex does continue to sell, and so does humor, and it would seem that the stink over Axe is the sweet perfume of marketing success.

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Maha Atal. “Axe’s Super Bowl Ad Fail: When Sexism Doesn’t Sell”. Forbes. February 4, 2012.

¹Martin Lindstrom. “Can a Commercial Be Too Sexy For Its Own Good? Ask Axe”. The Atlantic. October 24, 2011.

The Bayer Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Meyer, Merck, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories all have two things in common; they are all being sued for a cornucopia of ailments including recalls, failures to warn, birth defects, wrongful deaths, and  contaminations AND they’re among the most lucrative global pharma net earners in existence.

How can these lawsuit recidivists not only still be in business, but still be making the whopping big bucks?

Well Houston, we have a problem.

Pharmaceutical companies have cultivated and profited from the exploitation of a self perpetuating N. American addiction to prescription medication. This addiction wells from a collusive marketing campaign targeted at your own doctor and played out in your own family clinic.

Gwen Olsen, a former prescription sales rep blows the whistle on Big Pharma in her book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. Olson states plainly that major companies systematically solicit doctors with an aggressive marketing infrastructure so that patients essentially become captive consumers. Not only are doctors solicited, they are given incentives for every prescription pushed.

An article from The Economic Times by Gauri Kamath reveals that,

… pharma companies…shower doctors with lavish gifts and sponsor foreign trips…to exotic destinations as part of their brand-promotion efforts, thus influencing their prescribing behaviour.

Pharmaceutical companies, doctors and patients have settled their codependent brains for a long winter’s nap-with a heavy reliance on sedating Benzodiazepines and a generous chaser of denial.

It boggles me how these guys not only make money hand over fist off widespread legalized addictions, they survive repeated litigation over irresponsible FDA approved prescriptive malpractice that lay waste to real people in real ways, and they continue to sell themselves as successfully as they exploit their market.

No one seems to bat an eye. I guess that’s not listed as one of the possible side effects.

When Doug Bremner asks, “What is going on here?”¹  …I concur.

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¹Gauri Kamath. “Government drafts official code of marketing practices for pharma industry”. The Economic Times. June 4, 2011.

²Doug Bremner.“Does America Have a Prescription Drug Problem?”. The Huffington Post. November 25, 2011.

Greenwashing businesses may take a bath. Products claiming environmental compatibility to assuage consumer consciences have mushroomed as quickly as carbon gases over China. Just when you thought American businesses were waking up to the screaming need for global stewardship, the stats start talking back.

Scott McDougall, president of TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm based in Ottawa reported earlier this year that,

 …the number of “greener” products on store shelves has risen by 73 per cent since 2009. However, only 4.5 per cent of green products are what TerraChoice calls “sin-free”, while the rest commit “sins” that range from vague labelling and citing irrelevant facts to fibbing and outright fakery…¹  

McDougall goes on to say that some manufacturers even have their art departments mock up authentic looking green certification labels and apply them to their products assuming that consumers won’t read the fine print or sweat the company’s website. But there may be hope as the horizon heats up.

With awareness affiliations like TerraChoice, greenwashing violators increasingly on the hook for civil lawsuits and the recent Green House Gases Inventory Report publishing European successes and American failures, businesses might be forced to clean up their practice. Worth considering right now if you’re worried about getting scammed by the greenwashers is Iphone’s GoodGuide application. The app enables you to scan a product barcode to confirm its green legitimacy on over 120,000 products. Now that’s the kind of accountability a smart consumer can rely on.

It comes down to consumer intelligence. If we care about what we consume, we won’t get washed. With over 350 eco labels on the market, reading the fine print and ‘buyer beware’ continue to be the savvy consumer mantra

…and hey, there’s an app for that!

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