The Campaign

We would give women a new relationship with men’s razors. An intimate relationship. It wasn’t about gifting a razor. It was about sharing the shave. And we would tell our story through the delightful real-life romance of Hong Kong celebrities, Alex Fong and Stephy Tan. The two had been acting together in romantic movies for the past 10 years and had become a real off-screen couple. They had never represented a brand together before our team approached them with a novel idea for celebrating their love – and turning shaving into a romantic interlude for their anniversary.

Execution

Leveraging their latest movie release, we produced a video of Stephy surprising Alex with an unusual anniversary gift, leading him to a private after-hours salon for a celebration, where she proceeds to “share the shave.” Cutaway interviews provide an authentic, romantic and often humorous look at their real-life relationship. We posted the endearing video on Facebook and YouTube where it quickly went viral with minimal paid support. We amplified the campaign with an exclusive editorial integration with Elle magazine. Nine female readers were recruited and coached on how to “share the shave” with their partner –and apply their knowledge at a salon event, promoting further video views and resulting in a major Elle holiday feature. Finally, women purchasing Braun shavers over the holidays at a major Hong Kong retailer received tickets to Alex and Stephy’s movie. But the best part of our strategy took off on its own, as planned.

“Share the Shave” produced more than double the consumer reach of Braun’s previous 2015 campaigns, and more than doubled year-over-year holiday sales of Braun shavers, thanks to the massive organic success of the PR campaign. • The video hit the local Facebook newsfeeds of 1.44 million (about 20% of Hong Kong’s entire population), and generated 502,249 video views during the holiday sales period. • Organic reach accounted for 75% of exposure, compared to paid at 25%. • The video earned impressive local engagement and 20,000 Facebook likes (1.3%, compared to the average social media campaign in Hong Kong which receives 0.4 – 0.7%), plus 2,309 comments and 5,828 shares. • The Elle editorial spread reached 466,000+ readers. Braun had forged an intimate new relationship with Hong Kong consumers. And they loved them for it.

The Situation

Braun asked the agency for a PR campaign to drive sales of electric shavers in the Hong Kong market during the 2015 holiday season. The brand typically targets men through advertising. We needed to develop a new insight and idea to make shavers more appealing to women as gifts for their men – one that would also depend heavily on earning our visibility through digital and social media channels.

The Strategy

Let’s face it: women are generally more imaginative than men when it comes to gifting loved ones. They have many choices, and shavers aren’t at the top of the list. One reason is that most women don’t know much about men’s shaving needs. They know it’s a personal thing, but that’s about it. Then again, “personal” can also mean “intimate.” Our research revealed an interesting insight: Hong Kong women believed gifting a shaver was an expression of the depth of trust and intimacy in their relationship. A gift of shaving could be symbolic of their bond. The only thing more intimate would be sharing the experience -- inviting the woman to shave her man. To plant this idea, we’d create an intimate and shareable video of Stephy Tan shaving boyfriend, Alex Fong with a Braun S9 electric shaver, knowing it would connect socially with their legion of fans.