Axe Consumers Clamor for Custom Ping Pong Balls

The program has been viewed as wildly successful—millions of video views and the ping pong balls are a hit with everyone in the office and online. Thanks for all of your help. I know there were a few minor bumps that BDA made relatively painless.

Mark Link, Unilever Associate Brand Manager

Situation

Unilever created a hilarious tongue-in-cheek "Clean Your Balls" video to drive consumers to stores to purchase the AXE Detailer and AXE Shower Gel. The video was intended to generate brand affinity among AXE's target demographic of teen and college-age males through social networking websites. The AXE team needed BDA to develop an incentive for consumers to share the video via their Facebook and Twitter accounts

Challenge

BDA had less than two months to complete the large custom order. Overseas production needed to be completed in time to ship to the U.S. ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday.

Solution

BDA presented several ideas to Unilever incorporating AXE's marketing strategy of leveraging "beer pong"-related giveaways at college events. We created a limited-edition set of two black ping pong balls with the AXE Shower logo and a matching mesh drawstring bag.

BDA worked with a preferred supplier who was able to quickly provide pre-production samples for approval and meet budgets and timelines. However, the supplier was unable to deliver on its production schedule to place the shipment on a boat prior to Chinese New Year. To ensure on-time delivery for the client, BDA negotiated air freight with the supplier, splitting the cost difference.

Result

The buzz created around the ping pong balls was an amazing value to the client. The video garnered more than 6.5 million views as consumers clamored to get their set of custom AXE ping pong balls. AXE ordered another 70,000 sets to be given away at retail during back to school promotions.