The Kiss Debate
Award Category
Food and Grocery
Agency
MediaCom
Client
Procter & Gamble
Objectives
Razor blades had suffered a 7% dip in sales, which was not good news for Gillette. The brand needed to find a way to get young men to reassess their shaving habits. The task of MediaCom was to halt the decline in blade sales by getting young men to shave more often and to change the perception that stubble is desirable. It also had to deliver this on a limited media budget.
Campaign
The strategy was to use a male’s primary weakness – women – and the fact that women hate the feel of an unshaven face. MediaCom started a national debate to convince guys that girls prefer to kiss a clean-shaven guy. They did this by partnering with TV program The Bachelor Australia, which was the perfect platform for the message because couples often watch the show together, it inspires huge social chatter and The Bachelorettes were a ready-made influencer group. The ‘Kiss Debate’ was introduced through 10 content pieces to spark conversation in broadcast and digital. Kissers were directed to TheKissdebate.com.au website and more than 14,000 survey responses were received. A ‘Kiss Debate’ documentary was seeded across Gillette’s own channels, exploring women’s and men’s opinion on the decline of the kiss, which sparked media coverage. The debate was fuelled by introducing Gillette as the champion of better kissing, with Gillette-branded results from the survey distributed through 10 TVCs, on digital and mobile display, social and print channels. The campaign culminated with The Bachelor listening to national opinion and shaving his stubble for the finale with the chosen Bachelorette.
Results
Close to 15,000 people took part in the survey and there were 193,000 views of the ‘Kiss Debate’ documentary. The campaign generated 240,000 social engagements and a 31% increase in shaving frequency. There was also a 23% increase in men believing that a kiss is longer or more passionate when they are clean shaven, and 67% of men said they would shave their stubble to give their partner a better kiss. Gillette experienced an 89% rise in customer sales compared with the year before.
Judges Comments
Gillette’s ‘Kiss Debate’ demonstrated a strong connection to the campaign insight, activated in a locally relevant way to drive sales in a declining category.
