Axe Versus Old Spice
A Comparative Analysis, Published 3/21/13
Steffan Pedersen
Company Contact Information:
Axe, Unilever, HQ Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1-800-450-7580
Old Spice, Proctor & Gamble, HQ Cincinnati, Ohio, 1-800-677-7582
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary................................................................................... 2
Brief Overview and Current States ............................................................ 2
Comparative Evaluation of Social Presence ............................................... 3
Comparative Evaluation by Social Platform .............................................. 4
Comparative Social Media Maturity .......................................................... 6
Conclusion ................................................................................................ 7
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Executive Summary
In the past, executives did not believe in the ROI of social media campaigns. This is
very much the opposite today as companies are realizing how necessary, and
profitable, it is to have a presence wherever deemed appropriate. Social media
marketing builds relationships through driving engagement and utilizing two-way
communication with the audience. Having a well-tailored strategy to match your
target market will result in increased awareness and loyalty, being reflected through
increased revenue. In this document I plan on proving to you the ways in which Old
Spice prevails against its rival, Axe Body Spray, in their social media battle. I will
build my argument through observations made on social platforms like Facebook,
YouTube and Twitter, and through the utilization of tools like SocialMention.com to
gauge strength, sentiment, and passion. User comments across the web also proved
a significant source of information and will be discussed. Engagement with a target
audience is ultimately the goal of a social media campaign, and I aim to illustrate
how Old Spice excels in ways that Axe does not.
Brief Overview and Current States
Axe, also known as Lynx in the UK/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand, is a consumer
goods brand owned by Unilever who created it in 1983. The Axe brand includes
their famous body spray deodorants along with various stick deodorants, shampoos,
conditioners, facial cleansers, shaving creams, lotions, and body washes. Some may
consider Axe a front-runner and innovator in the production of their entertaining
commercials and brand, but their tricks are now commonly used throughout the
market. Currently, Unilever runs more than 400 brands, with approximately
171,000 employees and 2012 revenues of $51.32 billion. This shows Unilever
running a larger number of brands than Proctor & Gamble, and with smaller profits,
reflecting that maybe Unilever cannot put the same emphasis on Axe that P&G can
on Old Spice. Furthermore, the Axe brand has seen some recent setbacks, first being
criticized that their marketing tactics were “only about getting girls”, and recently a
PR controversy claiming that the sexist and degrading commercials undermine
young girls’ healthy development.
The Old Spice brand was founded in 1934 by the Shulton Company, but was then
purchased in 1990 by Proctor & Gamble. It began as primarily shaving soaps and
aftershaves for men but then expanded to similar product mixes we see in Axe.
Their staple product has always been the buoy shaped glass bottle of cologne with
the trademark sailboat logo on the front. Recently, Old Spice has moved away from
glass bottles to plastic, and has become the benchmark for which companies
compare their social media marketing tactics. Currently, Proctor & Gamble runs
over 300 brands, employing approximately 126,000 people with 2012 revenues
around $83.68 billion. These records may show a larger abundance of money from
which Old Spice can allocate to advertisements and celebrity endorsements, as
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compared to Axe. Also, with fewer brands and less employees P&G has the ability to
be more specialized and spend more time with each brand.
Both Axe and Old Spice have been very responsive in the technological transition to
social media marketing. Both have thrown together wildly successful campaigns,
and both know exactly to whom they are catering (Axe targeting the younger
teenage male demographic and Old Spice just males). Using the website
SocialMention.com I will compare and contrast the social metrics that this site
compiles. Before I get into the data in the following section I’d like to layout what
the terms mean. Strength shows the likelihood that the brand is being talked about
on the social web. Sentiment illustrates the ratio of generally positive to generally
negative comments on the social web. Passion demonstrates the likelihood that
people who talk about the brand online will do so repeatedly. And finally,
reach/influence encompasses the number of unique individuals talking about the
brand divided by the number of mentions. The metrics were recorded consistently
from January 22nd to March 19th and averaged to give the most accurate depictions.
Comparative Evaluation of Social Presence
Axe Old Spice
Strength
17%
29%
Sentiment
3:1
7:1
Passion
15%
21%
Reach/Influence 48%
73%
The numbers above are representative of around two months worth of sampling.
Without any explanation, it is already easy to see that Old Spice dominates these
metrics. In terms of strength, it is clear that Old Spice is being talked about more
frequently online than Axe. Their campaigns reflect this fact, as they curate and
create videos/content that must be sought out online. Once a person is online
looking at the video, engagement is the easy part as every video instantly has
hundreds of comments and conversations flowing. The same cannot be said about
Axe, whose older videos were among their most viewed, and new campaigns aren’t
catching on as well. Next is sentiment. Old Spice has a high degree of sentiment
compared to Axe, receiving generally more than twice as many positive to negative
comments. While browsing Social Mention’s comments section I noticed that these
numbers hold true to their meaning. Axe generally had comments mimicking its
slogans and saying how nasty the sprays are (a frequent “top hashtag” was
#justvomitedinmymouth). Opposite this, Old Spice’s comments were typically funny
reviews/quotes of videos or statements claiming to be impressed by Old Spice’s
creativity and strategy. Old Spice’s campaigns have been so impressive that
“Mashablecom” (a name given to the infamous social media blog Mashable) was a
consistent “top user” listed on Social Mention’s site. Whether sharing the newest
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video uploaded by Old Spice, or discussing tactics that every company should use,
the words “old” and “spice” appear everywhere online! The next measure is passion.
Old Spice had more passionate publishers, showing that they are more likely to
repeatedly talk about the brand online than Axe fans. To me, this correlates as being
an “apostle” or loyal customer. It is important to strive for publishers who continue
to write about your brand, so this is yet again a category Old Spice wins. The last
metrics observed from Social Mention are the brands’ reach/influence. Old Spice has
nearly twice the reach/influence of Axe which shows how much more broad of an
audience Old Spice has. The reach is nearly twice as large, meaning that the Old
Spice brand influences nearly twice as many people.
I would like to briefly get into the other valuable information Social Mention had to
offer before moving on. In the “top keywords” results that were given, Axe usually
had random words that somehow would channel people to the Axe content such as
Assassin’s creed, game, body, spray, video, or commercial. Old Spice’s top keywords
were much more specific, including Terry, Crews, spice, deodorant, Jennings, Greg,
or WolfDog. It seems like people sought after the Old Spice content but just ended
up somehow on the Axe content. (Axe promotes some of their content; i.e. on
Twitter, Wal-Mart had a promoted tweet about buying Axe shaving cream, so this
could be how most find their videos.) But I believe the most interesting findings on
Social Mention come from the compiled comments and tweets. Here is a table
showing the contrast between the two.
Axe
If you smell Axe on your lawyer,
you’re going to jail.
I don’t wear Axe because I’m not a
douche.
Never wear it!
People still wear that stuff? Grow
up and get a real scent!
It’s a female repellent.
Old Spice
You’re messing up if you’re not using Old
Spice.
I feel like I could be that Old Spice model
after using their body wash.
Old Spice is getting creative.
My life is just like the Old Spice
commercials.
The new Mr. WolfDog commercials rock!
One remarkable comment I noted was from the influential website Adpressive.com
who share impressive ads and viral videos for our browsing pleasure. They blogged
that “the Google Hangout with Mr. WolfDog was impressive and worth the 20
minutes”.
Comparative Evaluation by Social Platform
I will now go on to compare the two brands on their performance on social
websites; we’ll start with Facebook. Facebook has become the world’s largest social
site, with over 1.06 billion registered users, so it goes without saying that every
brand needs to be on Facebook. How they choose to manage themselves, however, is
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a different story. Companies can agitate their “fans” through endless request
notifications, pointless contests, begging for likes, etc. But if proper engagement is
created, the possibilities for ROI on Facebook are endless. Old Spice chose to engage
by just pushing information onto the page and letting fans do the talking. Witty
comments and comedic posts go along with their pictures and videos and do not beg
for any type of interaction. Axe, however, would write “’like this’ if _______” or “what
is your favorite YouTube channel?” Also Axe’s comments and captions had insane
amounts of CAPS LOCK and exaggeratedddd consonants, which caused it to lose
credibility in my opinion. Axe did excel in post ownership and responsiveness over
Old Spice however. Each Axe post (also on Twitter and their blog) was published by
either “Rocky” or “Law”, and furthermore they replied to every single post on their
wall. I was impressed they took the time to create this connection, as nothing of the
sort is seen on Old Spice’s page. Here is a table demonstrating some more
information regarding the brands’ Facebook campaigns.
Frequency/Cadence
Page Likes
Average # of comments/likes
per post
Axe
1-2 posts a day
3,004,449
Comments: 1001,600
Likes: 70015,000
Old Spice
Multiple daily posts,
but also up to 6 days
with no posts
2,393,200
Comments: 400-1,200
Likes: 500-23,000
The next social website I will discuss is Twitter; which houses 500 million total
users and growing. Although Twitter is new to most people, it is in some ways more
powerful than Facebook. The hashtag has become a revolutionary invention,
instantly connecting anyone that just types the same words after a pound symbol.
Old Spice (@OldSpice) posts many times a day, but that’s because they connect with
their fans here rather than how Axe (@AXE) does it on Facebook. Twitter is a much
better handle for answering questions directly and having a flowing conversation. In
terms of content published, Old Spice tweets witty remarks and links to
pictures/videos, whereas Axe tweets meme pictures and enjoys utilizing trending
topics/hashtags. As you can see in the table below, Old Spice dominated in
followers, which is incredible given they tweet about a quarter as much. To me, this
shows their newly gained popularity (~last 5-10 years) in that they have a much
greater following over Axe on Twitter compared to Facebook. This may also be
because in a Twitter feed you are actively reading and looking forward to seeing
what your connections say, whereas on Facebook you may click “like” and care less
about what they post. Another interesting note—on Twitter both brands seem to be
testing other social sites to see if they will catch on. In particular, Old Spice tweets
Pinterest shares and Axe tweets Vine images, and they can both be seen promoting
their respected Instagram accounts.
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Tweets
Following
Followers
Axe
13,976
321
89,944
Old Spice
3,271
1,036
219,472
The final outlet I will discuss is YouTube, which boasts 800 million users and over 4
billion views per day. So if videos (commercials) are a big part of your advertising,
YouTube is the ideal place for your company. Both brands used themes relevant to
their current campaigns that also highlight upcoming product lines. For Old Spice
this is their “Answer the Smell of the Wild” line that Mr. WolfDog is a part of, and for
Axe the theme is “Axe Face Score” showing off their new line of face scrubs/shaving
creams. I was impressed by Axe who created interactive videos where you choose
which product the main character uses and that takes you to another video showing
the results of picking that one. This is engaging and entertaining, to an extent, but I
still feel Old Spice’s endless playlists of viral videos are unbeatable. A huge
percentage of Old Spice’s videos were in the millions of views, whereas Axe had
many videos struggling to reach 100,000.
Subscribers
Page Views
Most Viewed Video (#)
Date Joined
Axe
20,103
26 million
7.2 million
2005
Old Spice
325,105
230 million
44 million
2006
Comparative Social Media Maturity
The comparison in this section is especially interesting to me. In my opinion being
able to adapt and evolve your brand is an expertise that proves vital in any business
model or campaign. Maturity comes when a brand has mastered its audience and
has become a benchmark for other companies. Social media maturity translates into
a brand being at the pinnacle of their overall efforts, a spot well deserved. Old Spice
has indeed raised the bar en route to their social media maturity. The use of
celebrity endorsements has been wisely chosen and carefully dissociated from on
their way to a new campaign. Old Spice’s campaigns always leave people asking for
more, a tricky concept to implement. Also, after browsing all of their web pages, the
integration is shocking. Everything from their personal website, to their Facebook
cover picture, to their YouTube theme is integrated seamlessly. Colors, wording,
layout, links, videos, etc. are all laid out in a way that is easy to navigate and fun to
look at. Furthermore, the trademark Old Spice whistle jingle is the epitome of a
successful campaign. Anyone that can get a whistle jingle stuck in my head for days
on end is a winner in my book. Now Old Spice is moving on to differentiation and
surprising us with the startling characters we see today. A nontraditional YouTube
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interview with Dr. WolfDog was wildly successful, as well as the Google Hangout.
Mel Peck states:
The whole campaign is exactly what we’ve come to expect from the brand:
brilliantly tongue in cheek, self-referential and full of the kind of viral hooks
that the Internet loves. … and as expected there’s a big, integrated social
media push behind this ad. … he’s commandeered its official Facebook and
Twitter feeds… (thedrum.com)
The WolfDog who took over as Marketing Director for a week is now gone as quickly
as he arrived, leaving people anxiously anticipating the next spokesperson. Axe does
have integration and consistency across pages, but don’t seem to have the concepts
that catch on quite like Old Spice does. I believe Axe is in a stage of post-maturity, as
they may have had a greater following before Old Spice’s recent successes took over
the viral entertainment spot. With today’s generation, however, maturity may be
tough to judge as just one campaign, or even one video, can send you skyrocketing
back to the top.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe Old Spice is winning this battle and has a higher maturity
level because of their integration, differentiation, and spontaneity. They understand
the balance between obnoxious and humorous, and seem to continue publishing
viral hooks and phrases that their audience cannot get enough of. The target
demographics for Old Spice are flocking to their pages and discussing the videos
everywhere; soon enough people will forget Axe even existed if Axe does not step
up. Axe is at a critical crossroads and needs to do something to stay competitive.
They could catch up by creating more witty and viral commercials, and by changing
their style. I don’t think the way Rocky and Law represent Axe on Facebook is
effective. If Axe ran a campaign like Dorito’s, asking fans to submit their own viral
videos to become a commercial, I believe they could gain ground on Old Spice.
Likewise, if Old Spice added a campaign of this sort, I think they could pull away.
Finally, if Old Spice added interactive content, like Axe’s YouTube, I believe they may
have the ability to pull even further ahead. Overall, I believe Old Spice has more
opportunities to pull ahead than Axe does to catch up. Congratulations to Old Spice
on this victory. Well deserved.