Axe (brand)

Axe/Lynx

Product type	Men's grooming products
Owner	Unilever
Country	France
Introduced	1983
Related brands	Dove
Markets	Worldwide
Website	www.theaxeeffect.com www.lynxeffect.com

Axe (also known as Lynx in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and People's Republic of China) is a brand of male grooming products, owned by the British–Dutch company Unilever and marketed towards the young male demographic.

History

Axe was launched in France in 1983 by Unilever. It was inspired by another of Unilever's brands, Impulse. Unilever introduced other products in the range but were unable to use the name Axe in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand due to trademark problems so it was launched as Lynx.^[1]

The European launch of the deodorant was followed by success in Latin America and moderate impact in Asia and Africa. In the new millennium, the brand has launched with great success in the United States and Canada. The company has also consolidated its deodorant portfolio by migrating other overlapping male deodorants into the Lynx brand such as South Africa's Ego brand.

In January 2012, Unilever launched its first Axe/Lynx product for women in the United Kingdom as part of a global expansion of the previously men’s-only brand.^[2] The Line of products is named "Axe/Lynx Anarchy" (named "Attract" in the UK).^[3]

Products

Although Axe's lead product is the fragranced aerosol deodorant body spray, other formats of the brand exist. Within underarm care the following are available: deodorant aerosol body spray, deodorant stick, deodorant roll-on, anti-perspirant aerosol spray (called Axe Dry), and anti-perspirant stick (also called Axe Dry).

From its launch, the annual fragrance variant has played a key part in the success of the brand by offering something new each year. The type of fragrance variants have evolved over time. From 1983 until about 1989, the variant names were descriptions of the fragrances and included Musk, Spice, Amber, Oriental, and Marine.

From 1990 until 1996, geographic names for fragrances were used, such as Java, Alaska, Nevada, Africa, and Inca. From 1997 to 2002, Axe took inspiration from Calvin Klein fragrances (also owned by Unilever at that time), using the same fragrance consultant, Ann Gottlieb, to develop the scents to launch variants, such as Atlantis, Apollo, Voodoo, Phoenix, Gravity and Dimension..

In 2009, the brand launched an 8-centimeter container called the Axe Bullet.^[4] The brand has also extended into other areas such as shower gels, aftershaves, and colognes, skin care, shampoo, and hairstyling products. Failed extensions include Underwear, Barbershop^[5] and razors. Razors, facial hair styling products, and shaving cream are now sold again as of late 2012 and early 2013.

Most scent names usually have a shower gel to accompany them and sometimes an antiperspirant/deodorant stick and an aftershave lotion.

The 2009 frame has a mint scent.

The Axe Shampoos come in three different sizes, the regular and most seen 12 fl oz size and the travel or sample size of 1.7 fl oz, 22oz bottles were introduced recently.

Axe also ships a shower scrub tool called the Axe Detailer.

List of Axe deodorants

AXE's list of yearly body-spray variants is as follows. Limited edition or short-lived variants are listed in a following table below and others.

Axe Limited Edition chronology

Axe also launches limited edition variants from time to time that may be on sale for a few months or over a year.

Axe shower gels

Axe shampoos

Axe hair stylers

Marketing

From 2003, Axe advertisements portrayed various ways the products supposedly helped men attract women. In 2003, the advertising in the UK for the Pulse fragrance showed how it supposedly gave geeky men the confidence to dance to get women. In 2005, Consumer Expert Dr. Vince Wong, CEO of Insights Interactive, was hired to help explore cross cultural behavioral motivations of their young male adult consumers. This fed into development of the brand globally, resulting in award winning global communication campaigns.. This was followed by Touch, Unlimited,^[27] Clix,^[28] and in 2007, Vice^[28] was marketed on a theme of making "nice" women become "naughty".

PR controversies

Adverse publicity has been generated by the product's advertisements for encouraging sexual promiscuity and sexism.^[38] The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood claimed that Bartle Bogle Hegarty's work on Axe "epitomizes the sexist and degrading marketing that can undermine girls' healthy development."

On January 12, 2008 12-year-old Daniel Hurley from Derbyshire, England died in a hospital five days after collapsing at his home. The medical coroner ruled that he had suffered from cardiac arrhythmia and died from heart failure as a result of spraying large amounts of Lynx in a confined space.^[39][40] Videos on social networking sites depicted teens setting themselves on fire. The trend resulted in multiple injuries.^[41] After these incidents occurred, the company created two ads, one against the use of Axe as an inhalant, and the other warning of its flammability.^[42]

Axe Apollo Space Academy (AASA)

Axe selected 23 astronauts for their Axe Apollo Space Academy, with the 23 countries represented being marked in color.

Axe initiated a marketing campaign whereby the company would select people in a worldwide contest to become astronauts who would fly sub-orbital space missions aboard the XCOR Lynx spaceplane. On December 5, 2013, Axe announced the 23 space cadets who had won the extensive training competition held at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The winners were from 23 different countries, some which had never been an astronaut before. The suborbital rides may to take place after the as yet unbuilt Lynx rocket has passed flight test objectives.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Axe (grooming product).

• Official Axe website
• Official Lynx website
• Axe Hair Crisis website, an Official Unilever Axe site