AXE “Balls” Ad Perfect Demographic Marketing

I was seeing a movie picture a few weeks ago and saw this AXE body spray ad for the first time. I have to admit, my jaw dropped and couldn’t decide if I was actually hearing it correctly and then wasn’t sure if I should laugh or not. So, I just said Wow, what great demographic marketing. My teenage nephew uses AXE body products and know this is exactly his type of humor.

This makes the augmented reality videos of a mexican wrestler (a parody of “Nacho Libera”) I created look like a afternoon Muppet special. Unfortunately, I am unable to share it with you becuase after rocketing virally for 8 hours of being live it was removed after due to narrow minded morons and lawers. But both had the right target demographic in mind, what I like to refer as the “Beavis and Butthead” generation. I am curious, if employees at AXE were offended by this campaign enough to cause a ruckus apparently not becuase it is still live and still successful.

This is great brand marketing. The video has over 2million hits and helped everyone spread the AXE product name around but I would be interested to know the ROI. Did this make teenagers go buy this product? My guess is No. I can’t see a teenager saying I have to have that, but I can see them asking their mom to get them the AXE detailer which is what the ad is really designed to promote.

Congratualations to AXE for being bold, taking a chance and getting it right. Taking risks is neede more in marketing but often not allowed becuase of executives focused on the bottom line or just no one is willing to step up and take the chance. You will likely fail more times than you succeed when taking chances but you will never know if you don’t take it.