Challenge

The Axe customer’s world had changed quite fundamentally: the explosion of social media, the arrival of smartphones, changes in fashion and a ground shift in attitudes to all things design required a repositioning of the brand and with it, Axe’s core product: the body spray.

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Insights

Our ‘Cool-Hunting’ research quickly revealed attitudinal changes within Axe’s target audience. Formerly, the brand was about ‘Getting the Girl’. Now, Axe users were talking about design, driven by contemporary new products: primarily, Apple’s iPhone, which triggered the new digital landscape.

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Outcome

The new aerosol design (Icon2) is innovative, with a strong identity: sophisticated, yet youthful, engaging and intuitive.  It runs down existing high-volume production lines, is made on existing can-forming machines, is more sustainable . . . and hits the target price! Its round-to-square, singular form is pure, visually simple and confident. When not in use, the button is flush and the action safely locked. Twisting the top is pure emotional ergonomics: a ‘mechanical ballet’ which both lifts the button up, revealing a flash of variant specific colour, and inclines it backwards into the ready-to-use position. This is both practical and intriguing: providing the sense of fascination, delight, playfulness and emotional engagement at the heart of the Axe brand.