Axe Clean Up With Comedy Shower Ad

Axe have an international reputation for edgy ads that sometimes push the boundaries of taste. At times when the public mood swings against that kind of commercial they’ve been known to struggle, but currently humour is having a bit of a comeback, and Lola MullenLowe have produced an ad for the brand in Germany which surprises, shocks but also makes viewers laugh.

The ad’s called “The Neighbour” and it follows an unlucky man who’s taking a shower with his Axe shower gel, singing merrily away when an unseen hand turns the water off at the mains. The man, with lather discreetly covering his more sensitive areas, goes to ask a neighbour if he can use theirs. A sweet old woman lets him in – though the attentive viewer may spot that she’s wearing a cardigan suspiciously like the hand that turned off the water…

Here’s where the advert takes a turn for the surreal and shocking. As the man emerges from his substitute shower, the old lady comes in – wearing red leather BDSM gear and cracking a whip. “Do you want a cup of tea?” she says to her stunned visitor, and the ad ends with a close-up of Axe shower gel and a tagline: “The Power Of A Fragrance”

Axe deserve a round of applause for trying a funny, risky and very unexpected ad. The question you might ask is: how do they get away with it? Audiences often turn against risque or weird material, with spikes in negative emotions like fear or disgust which are extremely hard for ads to reverse.

But that’s not what’s happened here. “The Neighbour” scores 4.0-Stars on our Test Your Ad platform, indicating a strong potential for growing the brand long-term given the right level of investment. That’s into the top 5% of all German video ads. It does even better on short-term Spike Ratings, hitting an Exceptional score, and the strong branding means it comes in above the German average for Brand Fluency too.

Did some of the audience feel negative emotions watching the ad? Yes! 5% felt Disgust, well above the average. But that’s dwarfed by the people responding with the positive emotions of Surprise and Happiness. The lesson is clear – be bold. if you have a bold, funny idea for an ad, and execute it well, you can afford a certain amount of negative reaction as the positive response will far outweigh it.

The other big reason to be bold is that one of the worst possible things for an ad to be is dull. In our Cost Of Dull study last year, we looked at the opportunity costs of making ads which don’t spark any emotion, exploring the millions of dollars marketers save when they make ads which make people feel something instead of nothing. That study was done in the UK but there’s little doubt the broad conclusions hold true of Germany too.

And “The Neighbour” is anything but dull. The average neutrality – people feeling nothing – score for a German video ad is 41%. For this one it’s 22%. It’s an ad that looks for a reaction and gets one – a much better plan than playing it safe.