Axe (brand)

Lynx/Axe

Product type Men's grooming products
Owner Unilever
Country France
Introduced June 6, 1983 (1983-06-06)
Related brands Dove
Markets Worldwide
Website www.axe.com/us/en/home.html
www.lynxexpression.com

Axe or Lynx is a brand of male grooming products, owned by the British-Dutch company Unilever and marketed towards the young male demographic. It is known as Lynx in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and China. In other countries it is known as Axe.[1][2]

Products

Lynx Deodorants; Apollo, Black and Africa
Collection of many Axe products

Lynx was launched in France in 1983 by Unilever. It was inspired by another of Unilever's brands, Impulse. Unilever introduced many products in the range, but were forced to use the name Lynx in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand due to trademark issues with the Axe name. In addition, some countries (such as South Africa) introduced the brand as EGO.[3]

Scents have evolved over time. From 1983 until about 1989, the variant names were descriptions of the fragrances and included Musk, Spice, Amber, Oriental, and Marine. From 1990 until 1996, geographic names for fragrances were used. In 2009, the brand launched an eight-centimetre container called the Axe Bullet. The brand has also extended into other areas.

Most scent names usually have a shower gel to accompany them and sometimes an antiperspirant/deodorant stick and an aftershave lotion. The Axe Shampoos come in three different sizes, regular size, travel or sample size of and XL bottles. Axe also ships a shower scrub tool called the Axe Detailer.

Axe also launches limited edition variants from time to time that may be on sale for a few months or over a year.

Marketing

From the 1990s, Axe advertisements portrayed various ways the products supposedly helped men attract women. In 2003, the advertising in the UK for the Pulse fragrance showed how it supposedly gave "geeky" men the confidence to woo women with dance. In 2005, Consumer Expert Dr. Vince Wong, CEO of Insights Interactive, was hired to help explore cross cultural behavioral motivations of their young male adult consumers. This fed into development of the brand globally, resulting in award winning global communication campaigns.[4] This was followed by Touch, Unlimited,[5] Clix,[6] and in 2007, Vice,[6] which was marketed on a theme of making "nice" women become "naughty".

PR controversies

Adverse publicity has been generated by the product's advertisements for encouraging sexual promiscuity and sexism.[7] The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood claimed that Bartle Bogle Hegarty's work on Axe "epitomizes the sexist and degrading marketing that can undermine girls' healthy development."

On January 12, 2008 12-year-old Daniel Hurley from Derbyshire, England died in a hospital five days after collapsing at his home. The medical coroner ruled that he had suffered from cardiac arrhythmia and died from heart failure as a result of spraying large amounts of Lynx in a confined space.[8][9] Videos on social networking sites depicted teens setting themselves on fire. The trend resulted in multiple injuries.[10] After these incidents occurred, the company created two ads, one against the use of Axe as an inhalant, and the other warning of its flammability.[11]

Axe selected 23 astronauts for their Axe Apollo Space Academy, with the 23 countries represented being marked in color.

Axe Apollo Space Academy (AASA)

Axe initiated a marketing campaign whereby the company would select people in a worldwide contest to become astronauts who would fly sub-orbital space missions aboard the XCOR Lynx spaceplane. On December 5, 2013, Axe announced the 23 space cadets who had won the extensive training competition held at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The winners were from 23 different countries, some of which did not have space agencies or had not produced any astronauts before. The suborbital rides would take place after the unbuilt XCOR Lynx rocket would have passed flight test objectives.

References

  1. ↑ About Axe and Lynx on the Unilever website
  2. ↑ Van Den Bergh, Joeri; Behrer, Mattias (2011). How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation. Kogan Page Publishers. p. 130-131.
  3. ↑ Van Den Bergh, Joeri; Behrer, Mattias (2013). How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation. Kogan Page Publishers. p. 145. ISBN 9780749468057.
  4. ↑ "Insightsinteractive.com". insightsinteractive.com.
  5. ↑ "New Lynx fragrance set to deliver 'Unlimited' sales". Unilever.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  6. 1 2 "Lynx- Click". Unilever.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  7. ↑ Harris, Paul (2006-07-09). "The Menaissance: The American male is learning to flex his muscles again". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  8. ↑ "Boy, 12, Died After Spraying Deodorant: Lynx Aerosol Triggered Heart Condition In Daniel Hurley". News.sky.com. Archived from the original on 12 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  9. ↑ Andy Dolan (2008-11-20). "Boy, 12, collapsed and died after 'using too much Lynx deodorant'". London: Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
  10. ↑ Qadar, Sana (2007-09-28). "Teen burned in popular body spray stunt". CTV.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2016-12-18.
  11. ↑ "Responsible Use". The Axe Effect. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
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