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Client: Philips Norelco
Creative Agency: Tribal DDB

Philips had uncovered a trend: For the last few years, men have been more conscious of their body grooming habits. Research out of the UK showed that over 50 percent of men were already considering or performing trimming and shaving below the neck. After an initial success with this product in the UK in 2005, Philips asked their Philips Norelco division to launch the Bodygroom in the United States in 2006.

Most men were embarrassed about their below-the-neck grooming habits and very unwilling to engage in a discussion of the practice with anyone other than potentially their spouse or partner. We needed to develop a way of talking to the target audience, 18- to 34-year-old males, with humor and masculinity in order to disarm them and get them to engage in a discussion about body grooming.

To make the challenge more interesting, Philips Norelco had a limited budget to launch this new product, but still had aggressive sales goals. It was an unproven product in a new category, but a huge potential audience. That led the team to think about ways to use alternative channels like the web to reach our target in a way that would leverage their natural affinity for sharing good entertaining content.

The idea was to create a character who has become so comfortable in his own skin -- remarkably so -- that any sensitivity around the "issue" at hand would vanish. Thus was born "The Bodygroom Guy." With his newly hair-free body and skyrocketing love life, The Bodygroom Guy is startlingly relaxed and disarming. In fact, he doesn't even bother censoring himself when discussing the product that altered his life. That job is done, by Philips itself.

By developing this content for the web, we allowed Philips the freedom to be a little more risque than they might be in more traditional channels, and put the message in the hands of those who are most likely to use the product and share the content based on both its entertainment content and its culturally timely product message. In addition, we opted to deliver all the content in Flash-based video format, including traditionally text-based content like FAQs and product usage tips.

The success of this site has been immediate. In the first three weeks of being live, the site, with limited support from PR and online advertising, has received over 900,000 visits, with an average viewing time of over six minutes. It has received mention in over 1,000 blogs, and already has over 13,000 website links pointing to it. Most important to the client, initial indications are that sales impact has been just as successful, our real goal all along.
-- Steve Nesle, executive creative director, Tribal DDB

If Tribal DDB's Norelco Shave Everywhere site wasn't tremendously "viral," what a <bleep>ing letdown it would have been. The product itself seems to be custom-made for legions of <bleep>-conscious men, while the site reaches out and grabs the <bleep> of whomever the sheer mention of <bleep>s elicits a chuckle. I received a link to the site from no fewer than five people within a week of its launch, and I personally know two people that purchased the product as a result. The fact that people know about this product without any (as-of-yet) mainstream advertising is a testament to the campaign-- and the (who knew?) need for a product like this in the marketplace. One of my favorite things about the site is that they could have stopped with a video introduction to the product, but no-- they filled the site with things like music videos, taking the jokes too far (in a good way), creating even more viral potential. Rumor has it, even MTV requested to air the music video.
 
While the site lacks some real "interactive" features, it more than makes up for it in content. While this kind of execution doesn't work for all products, any marketer with a product that will ultimately touch your <bleep>s should take notice. Fantastic. I give it five out of five <bleep>s for having the <bleep>s to get behind something as risque as this.
-- Ian Schafer, president, Deep Focus

Norelco's ShaveEverywhere.com knows exactly how to target its online young male demographic by presenting a site that is funny and engaging. The design of the site was minimal and clean, "trimming" all superfluous features to present a "smooth" and clean creative. The viral component of this creative was a great idea. By emailing this creative to your furry friends, you can share a hilarious online ad while subtly suggesting that they rid themselves of that excess body hair. The test drive of the razor was an excellent interactive element that rivaled the humorous "bleeps" of our freshly shorn, well-groomed masculine online host/site narrator, which was another great creative choice for the site. I found the music video a little too corny, but the whole timbre and tone of the site was just that-- glib and sarcastic. Overall, smooth, polished, funny, engaging, slightly naughty and clean!
-- Roger Park, news editor, iMedia