tackles a high-school football player and claws at his uniform. Axe was
the player’s emissary: It wafted into Girlville for him and brought back a
catch. But now, kids hang out in mixed-gender groups; they’re pals, then
hookup buddies, then pals again. That complicates things. “The proposi-
tion of Axe is it helps guys be attractive to women,” says Rubin. “Because
of that, women are our proof point. I mean, we can’t make guys more
attractive to girls if the girls don’t agree with us.”
So Axe is shifting in modest but significant ways, to play to both gen-
ders simultaneously. To do this, it seems willing to sponsor basically
anything that can set the stage for a college roommate’s sexile. There’s One
Night Only, where Axe hosts gigantic musical acts like Girl Talk at small
clubs in college towns; Axe-branded nightclubs; and campus-wide “Undie
Runs,” where hordes of stripped-down college kids donate clothes and
then move on to other athletic pursuits. And in TV ads, rather than being
overtaken by a scent, actresses are more demanding, telling guys to smell
or groom better. “Women see Axe as empowering women in a different
way than before, because Axe is all about getting the girl to make the first
move,” contends Jake Katz of youth-market research company YPulse. “It
taps into this idea that millennials are raised in an equal-opportunity
environment. Women are told to go for it more than any generation before.”
Before Axe launched its hair-care line in 2009, the Republic spent
months speaking to college women, asking them to critique men’s hair.
It then incorporated those ideas into its ads. “So by the time guys knew
to pay attention,” Rubin says, “there was a whole volume of women say-
ing, ‘This is how I think about you.’ ” And this year, for the first time, Axe
released a body spray for women—Anarchy For Her, a floral punch in the
face that’s paired with an Anarchy For Him, along with ads showing men
and women falling under an equal spell. (The company declines to say
whether more female-targeted products will follow.)
None of this may sound like feminism. But if you rewind the Axe ad
reel, you can see just how culturally in tune it is today—and how impor-
tant it is for Axe to stay vigilant. Axe ads from the early ’90s were James
Bond knockoffs: a grown man in some steamy, exotic locale would drop
his sunglasses, a woman would pick them up, and—helloooo—catch a
lusty whiff of his chest. “We talked to some of the more progressive kids
and they were laughing at Axe,” says Emma Cookson, chairman of BBH
in New York, the agency that took over Axe in 1995. “So we said, ‘You have
to stop saying it’s a magic potion, like a fine fragrance that just totally
transforms the moment. Don’t take yourself so seriously.’ ”
BBH reformulated the pitch: It became (wink, wink) a magic potion
that (nudge, nudge) totally transforms the moment. And that laid the
groundwork for today’s metamorphosis, with ads so cartoonish that guys
and girls are expected to enjoy them together. “Axe is deliberately not
telling the truth, so they’re being truthful about being untruthful. And
there’s an honesty there that this generation really relates to,” says psy-
chologist Kit Yarrow, who studied teen purchases for her book Gen Buy.
When I repeat the observation, Cookson laughs. “That’s just spot-on,”
she says.
Like the Beatles or Twitter, Axe’s 2002 debut is a line drawn in
time: If you came of age during its reign, you’re better equipped to appreciate the kids who love it. And if you were never Axe’s target demo, the
whole thing just seems a little gross. “I understand the perceptions,” says
Dan Fletcher, one half of Axe’s social media team. Along with partner
Lauren Dugdale (they’re both 28), he responds to every tweet or Facebook
comment aimed at Axe—enthusiastic postings that include everything
from photos featuring Axe cans to chest-thumping details of the previous
night’s hookup. “When Axe came out, it was my senior year of high school,”
An Axe user
will spend about
five years with
the brand. The
company’s
marketing team
claims the typical
age ranges from
20 to 25—though
high-school gym
teachers would
dispute that.
Fletcher recalls. “Talking to the guys
on the Facebook page now is not
unlike talking to the guys and
friends I grew up with.”
Axe outsources its social media
work: Fletcher and Dugdale are
actually employees of Axe’s public-
relations contractor, Edelman.
And before they were hired in early
2011, Axe’s social voice was simply
a girl named Jennie. The two are a
market-crafted pair—Fletcher is
heavily tattooed and obsessed with
skateboarding, and Dugdale is
blonde, bubbly, and knows how to
mug for the camera in that I’m-tough-but-hot way. Together, they film goofy videos testing Axe products
(like cartwheeling across the Brooklyn Bridge to show the staying power
of Axe’s hair gel) and gather consumer insights based on everything
Axe’s combined 4 million social media followers write.
And right now they’re prompting some more of those postings, huddled over a laptop and crafting a call to action on Facebook that, to nail
the voice of a 16-year-old’s text message, requires the precision of an
overcaffeinated artist.
Fletcher: “How many exclamation points will you put on?”
Dugdale: “I want to do three.”
There’s some more fiddling and fine-tuning, and then a deep breath.
Dugdale: “It’s always this moment, like, I’ve been doing this for years
and still, like . . .”
Fletcher: “It’s still exciting.”
Click. Post. March 2, 2: 51 p.m. Onto the news feeds of horny teenagers
everywhere, there is now a photo of a tower of Axe canisters along with
this imperative: “AXE Nation! DROP a LIKE if AXE makes you awesome!!!
Which AXE is your AXE? –Dan + Lauren with AXE”
And then, the craziest things happen!!!
In sum, 5,177 people click like on this. An additional 1,235 leave a
comment. Of those comments, 158 come in the first three minutes, 24 of
them from women. In fact, 25% of Axe’s Facebook fans are female. Among
the first to write is Brooke Ibarra, 31, an Ohio resident who sees the post
at home while caring for her 2-year-old. “I’ve told my boyfriend I like
when he wears it,” she explains later, “so he only buys the scents I like.”
Also at home is 38-year-old Tammi Roderick, who sniffed Axe in a
supermarket nine months ago, dropped a “like,” then bought a bunch of
Axe products for her husband and three sons. “I love how it smells,” she
says. “They open up the bathroom door after a shower and the whole
bathroom smells like Axe, and I love it.”
This may not be quite what the Axe Republic had in mind, but it must
be reassuring. “My sons jokingly say, ‘Oh, now we’re going to be irresist-
ible to women,’ ” Roderick tells me. Her sons are 17, 18, and 20. Axe is just
getting started with them.
jason@fastcompany.com
