Premise
AquaTouch is a range of electric shavers by Philips in India. Though there wasn’t much awareness about them due to India being a razor-dominated market. The aim was to raise awareness and thus drive sales. Nicks and cuts while shaving with a blade was a norm among Indian men. They had an innate “it’s ok” attitude towards it. We decided to break that inertia with an idea that engages users and encourages them towards a behavioural change – from blade to Philips electric shavers. The idea was the human manifestation of the blade where the blade confesses its crimes—the nicks and cuts.
Synopsis
Bladey was characterized as the villain in the story and made to confess its crimes on social media. But Bladey’s role was much more than that, he had to tell the story. Bladey Confessions was shaped as a unique story narrated by the villain to its victims (our audience). It all started with a teaser video that was promoted on all social media channels where we announced the advent of Bladey. It was followed by branded videos of Bladey confessing his crimes of ruining important days in its users’ lives by causing nicks and cuts. Our branded content created a lot of buzz on social platforms, following which we released a series of videos. Some of them were promoted through native articles. The above video is one among them. The video revolves around how a newly married man ruins his honeymoon by shaving with a razor before his first night. His wife couldn’t stand the gory scars on his face and his whole honeymoon turned out to be a total disaster. We wanted to emphasize that a tiny mistake could lead to total disaster sometimes. A razor spoiling an important night struck the right chord in the minds of our target audience. This was one of the many such videos that were promoted on the brand’s social media channels to drive traffic to: www.bladeyconfessions.com, the hub for all the branded content. All branded videos were hosted on the campaign YouTube channel. Native advertising was deployed to further create buzz and interest around Bladey Confessions. News articles were published on hoax news websites like Faking News. In addition to this, the digital and the real world were brought together to carry out an on-ground activation in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Participants were gratified with discounts in Philips AquaTouch shavers. The entire activity was supported with a live Twitter influencer program.
Outcome
The story was started by the villain and concluded with the introduction of our hero—Philips AquaTouch. It was every man’s savior from the razor’s atrocities. Dramatizing the horrors of shaving with a razor helped create buzz in the digital space and gave our audience conversation starters. The awareness of the product increased and many loyal blade users identified with the complications of shaving with a blade. As a result, many men gave up their razors and moved on to Philips AquaTouch.