SCANDAL SHAVE

Short List
TitleSCANDAL SHAVE
BrandP&G CHINA
Product / ServiceGILLETTE
CategoryA08. Use of Social in a Media Campaign
EntrantBBDO CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Entrant Company BBDO CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Advertising Agency BBDO CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Media Agency MEDIACOM Shanghai, CHINA
Production Company KEY POINT PRODUCTION Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Kit Koh BBDO China Executive Creative Director
Jason King BBDO China Head Of Planning
Alvina Yeah BBDO China Group Account Director
Kevin Jin BBDO China Creative Director
Airy Han BBDO China Associate Creative Director
Tao Dong BBDO China Strategic Planner
Uming Tong BBDO China Strategic Planner
Elsa Gu BBDO China Senior Account Manager
Waifoong Leong BBDO China Executive Creative Director Of Greater China

Results and Effectiveness

In just 4 weeks, 'Scandal Shave' reached 237 million people, achieved 450,000 interactions, and earned US$14 million in free media. In terms of sales, the campaign helped sell 3 million razors, recording the brand's highest launch sales month in its history in China. Also, the campaign reversed the monthly sales of dry shaving category by 43%, representing a shortfall of 260,000 units; equivalent to an entire month's sales of market leaders Philips and Flyco. All the above were achieved without any changes in price/ distribution, and with just 10% of the average monthly media spend of the dry shaving category.

Creative Execution

Acknowledging our target's preference for taboo, extensive effort was applied to preserve the authenticity of the 'private video'. Not only was the clip sent to weibo users via unmarked DVDs, once it surfaced online it was aided by a stream of 'unbranded' and carefully deployed editorial, opinion-leader involvement and dialogue seeding from celebrities on popular social networking sites like weixin and weibo; all of which helped the topic gain interest nation-wide as well as extensive coverage across radio programmes, magazines, blogs and national news. Only after 2 weeks, did Gillette release a suite of branded initiatives to 'own' the conversation, including the unveiling of Gao YuanYuan as the brand's first ever spokeswoman on popular news portals, release of branded initiatives (online competition, PR events, content, strategic media buys), as well as e-commerce partnerships with T-Mall (banners, brand pages, search); converting interest into sales of wet razors.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The challenge was a decade of category erosion: 7/10 men in China could no longer justify the inconvenience of wet shaving (preparation, shave, wash), driving 18.3 million men to switch to more convenient dry shavers annually. For Gillette this represented US$647.2 million in lost earnings between 06'-12', and no amount of innovation or promotion could stem the exodus:men had simply stopped listening.Everything changed with 'Scandal Shave'. Inspired by the powerful insight that women in Chinafind the act of men wet shaving arousing to watch; an unbranded 'private' home video of nationalsweetheart Gao Yuanyuan scantily clad and intimately wet shaving with a man was 'leaked' to the media to deliver our message, generating an enormous national scandal. Capitalising on this with a full suite of branded activities, men became flabbergasted with the effect of wet shaving and felt compelled to try for themselves.