Mindshare
Men Do Apologize TV Integration
Awards: Branded Content (Gold)
Campaign summary
In line with Axe’s long term strategy of having a cool male tone of voice with an emphasis on diminishing negative gender stereotypes around toxic masculinity, Axe has focused on fighting the “Real Men don’t apologize” stereotype in 2018. The purpose is weakening gender stereotypes via generating talkability on social media about how old fashioned these beliefs are.
Integrating our branded content to the popular TV show “Çukur”, in a way that the consumers haven’t experienced before, with the use of TV Adbox technology. For the first time in Turkey, a TV audience decided what would happen next in their favorite show, simply by using a remote control.
We’ve spreaded our message “Men do apologize” in an impactful way, helping the brand create positive talkability and higher brand engagement
- Objectives and Strategy
Axe had a long heritage of a “teenager male” tone of voice, with, shamefully, sexist references in between the lines. As of 2013 Axe started a journey of “growing up” leaving the old self behind. After stepping into the adult male life, combatting the idea of toxic masculinity has became a strategic priority for Axe. First fought with the “Men do not cry” gender stereotype, and in 2018, Axe focused on breaking the "Men do not apologize." stereotype.
Our objective was to find ways to grab our target audience’s attention and create awareness around how the “Real Men don’t apologize” stereotype pressures men in their life.
Also on the product side, there was a packaging innovation to prevent the breaks in product caps. There was negative buzz in social media around it and we’ve announced the new packaging on social media via #kirdiysakozurdileriz (#weapologizeforbreaking), which then became the campaign hashtag
- Execution and Media
Unlocking this strategy was possible via making popular macho characters to apologize. Çukur (The Pit) is one of the most popular TV series in Turkey, telling the story of a dangerous neighborhood ran by a noble mafia family. Since every episode has been watched by average 5mio people and male characters had been demonstrating all the wrong gender stereotypes that we fight against, it was the perfect content for us to integrate our message.
But it wasn’t enough just to reach people, since scenario integrations are heavily used by brands. In order to generate talkability, it was also critical to interact with them in a way that the interaction itself would also create further buzz.
Thus, we created a TV integration project that reflected the public opinion in real time, in a way that hasn’t been done before in Turkey thanks to the integration of TV Adbox and social media.
- Creative
Having various content alternatives and letting the audience define the storyline hasn’t been done before in Turkey. In collaboration with the scriptwriters, 4 different conflict scenes in which 4 different male actors hurt another character’s feelings were created.
Then viewers were asked to decide, which character should apologize in real time via TV Adbox and Twitter.
The voting results were shared after the first half of the episode on TV Adbox frame ads and on Twitter.
Then the apology scene of most-voted character was broadcasted in the second half of the episode
- Innovation
TV Adbox (A HBB TV technology), enables advertisers to broadcast targeted ads on TV and also create interaction with the viewers via the remote control.
Asking TV audience to decide what will happen next in real time was never been done before in Turkey. Of course not at the same scale, but it was even before Netflix did it with Black Mirror.
People voted via Smart TV remote control, every character had a color coding on the remote. Also people who didn’t own a Smart TV were able to vote via Twitter. The most voted character apologized in the same episode on broadband. So the voters have had the chance to influence what all viewers would watch.
Then the voters of other 3 characters were retargeted, leading them to watch the apology scene that they’ve wanted to see in our and Cukur’s social media accounts.5. Results
The episode was watched by 5 million people. 5.249 votes were collected in just 60 minutes, through Smart TV’s and Social Media (1582 from Smart TV, 3667 from social media.)
During the apology scene, via frame ad on TV we’ve aired an apology CTA: “Now, it’s your turn. Apologize from the ones you’ve hurt with the hashtag on Twitter!”. 3.750 apology messages were shared on Twitter in half an hour with hashtag #Kirdiysakozurdileriz. Axe became an organic trending topic and we’ve reached 1.216.226 unique users on Twitter in 3 hours with minimum investment.
The use of this innovative technology, in a way that changed the course of an episode, was an unique experience for Cukur watchers
