Planning Awards: BBH, London (Grand Prix)

AGENCY: BBH, London

Client: Unilever

Brand: Axe Lynx

Category: International

Campaign Title: “Click”

Planners: Jonathan Bottomley; Gavin May

“What makes this paper outstanding is the way it challenges today’s working process, and challenges, as a consequence, the role of the planner as well. It’s simple, comprehensive and inspirational,” says judge Ken Fujioka, JWT Brazil.

Indeed, pushing communications thinking upstream into the new-product development process is something a lot of people talk about, but few persuasively demonstrate.

The involvement of the BBH team before product development reaffirms the importance of starting off on the right foot and that the creative brief is not the starting point—new product development itself is. It shows the power of a communications development process that starts with an idea first and evolves into product, naming and packaging. It shows how a single holistic product and communications concept can be so much more powerful than two separate ideas.

We all wish we had that degree of influence to create. In this case, BBH manages to show it did it. True to Axe cases every year, BBH also manages to show great insight into the “point-scoring” male target and deliver the campaign that is seeded everywhere from chat shows to Kanye West videos.

“[Planners] did narrow in on a nice insight (albeit not a new one) that guys keep score,” says judge Sveta Srinivasan of Taxi. “What impressed me was how this insight was used in the NPD process to develop the fragrance.”

Adds judge Mark Earls, “Axe ‘Click’ showcases the best of old and new school planning: a proper understanding of the consumer context cutely observed and a brief that leads to a new kind of communication—a behavioral meme. Top work.”