Director:  Tim Godsall
DOP: Jess Hall
Editor: Richard Orrick
Sound: Raja Sehgal
Creatives: Diego Cardoso de Oliveira + me, Gary McCreadie & Wesley Hawes
CDs: David Kolbusz & Dominic Goldman
ECD: Nick Gill
Producers: Ruben Mercadal & Charlie Dodd

Print
Camapign

Axe had been selling the same promise to young guys since before our audience was born: spray this and women will like you.
By 2012 they'd heard it from older brothers, seen it parodied, and tuned out.

Diego and I pitched a different promise. Instead of telling guys Axe would make them more attractive, we'd turn them into the thing
women actually want: a hero. The insight underneath was simple. Guys compete with stories, and no story beats "I've been to space."

So we built the Axe Apollo Space Academy, a global competition to send 22 young men into orbit. Actual space.
Because girls love heroes, and of all possible heroes, nothing beats an astronaut.

"A giveaway that it can say, without hyperbole, is out of this world." The New York Times

Buzz Aldrin fronted the whole thing, which settled any doubt about whether it was actually happening.
Finalists from 60 countries went through Space Camp at Kennedy Space Center, with physical tests, mental aptitude assessments and fighter jet training. Their stories became a documentary, Generation Astronaut, that aired in over 50 countries.

Normally Axe launches a new variant every year and advertising follows the product. This time the idea came first, and the deodorant itself was named Apollo to fit the campaign. This was also the first time an Axe campaign was driven by an activation idea. TV, print and digital drove guys toward the competition.

"A marketing campaign too strange not to be true." Wired

The campaign generated 35 million YouTube views, 20 million hub site hits, 750,000 unique competition entries and 8 million votes cast. It became the best-selling Axe variant launch in key markets, recruiting the next generation of guys into the brand.

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Awards

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More Work

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