Razorfish & Jeff Labbe Create A Sexually Crazed Global Population For Axe

This week, Razorfish launched the first film in a pan-European campaign, ‘Breaking News’, to support the launch of Unilever’s Lynx Attract body sprays, which include, for the first time, a variant for men and a corresponding one for women. The multi-million pound, multi-channel campaign uses the idea of news bulletins to tell of of the chaos caused by both sexes experiencing "The Lynx Effect" after exposure to the new sprays. The 60” TVC, 'Epidemic’, was directed by Jeff Labbe, produced by Sonny London with post production by The Mill. 

 

The TVC will broke at 10:15pm on ITV2 in the UK on Monday, 27 February during ‘Celebrity Juice’ and pushed people to Lynx’s owned web properties. Two further films, ‘Controlled Explosion’ and ‘Reactions’ continue the story and were directed by Nick Rutter (also Sonny/The MIll). They will be hosted both on the brand’s Facebook page and YouTube channel whilst a YouTube homepage takeover, VOD and digital OOH carry the chaos across other media channels.

 

The campaign, which also includes 30” VOD edits of the initial film, will have a staggered roll out across Europe, eventually playing out in 15 countries. As such the original films were re-shot using 11 different actresses, speaking 13 different languages for a total of 83 edits. 

 

“The brief was to make the idea of chaos famous,” said Andrew Waite, Brand Manager for Lynx at Unilever, UK.  “Razorfish led a team of agencies to create our European plan for Lynx Attract. We wanted to do something that young guys would find surprising, unconventional and entertaining and we are really happy with the results." 

 

The three films follow the arc an authentic news story might take. The first, ‘Epidemic’ sets the scene, sharing the initial news of the unfolding chaos. The second film, ‘Controlled Explosion’ continues telling the story using an eye-witness account, and the final film, ‘Reactions’ shows how world governments are reacting, and how the attraction epidemic is affecting real people around the world.

 

To see the work, click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7sIwSvEgdo

 

“It was wonderful that our clients committed to the idea of delivering the campaign using a news report so completely. That meant a lot of extra work to really do it properly. We couldn’t fall back on advertising conventions like end frames or voiceovers to tell the story,” said Sean Chambers, Executive Creative Director at Razorfish.  “But we also had the freedom to have the newsreader say things the brand couldn’t, like ‘don’t buy Lynx Attract’. We also very lucky to have partners like Jeff Labbe, the director, and Sonny, the production company, who loved the idea from the very beginning. We stuck to the vision of doing something really different.”

Meanwhile, Razorfish worked with agencies including Mindshare, Mischief PR, Tullo Marshall Warren and Dokyo to amplify the launch across Europe. Using the creative idea of ‘breaking news’ Unilever’s agencies across Europe will each create their own stunts and content to further the idea of chaos spreading. Each agency will share content with the others through a hub maintained by Razorfish, ensuring a true pan-European show of chaos.

 

 

Credits:

The TV campaign was created by Razorfish.

Digital OOH was produced by Grand Visual.

Facebook assets were developed by Tullo Marshall Warren.  

Visit apps.facebook.com/choaswatch for more.

 

Campaign: Breaking News

Creative Agency: Razorfish

Executive Creative Director: Sean Chambers

Copywriter: David Cadji-Newby

Art Director: Sean Chambers

Agency Producer: Nicole Saganice

Media Agency: Mindshare Europe

Production Company: Sonny London

Director: Jeff Labbe (at Sonny)

Producer:  Dickie Jeffares (at Sonny)

Editing: Richard Orrick / Rachael Spann at Work 

Post Production: The Mill

Audio: Jungle / Plan 8 Stockholm

Exposure:  national TV, online, VOD, OOH