Unilever’s Lynx brand (named Axe in the U.S.) is known for its absurd and sometimes controversial ads. Its latest campaign from agency LOLA MullenLowe embraces that history with some particularly dark humor.
Cannes Lions-winning directors Koen Mortier and Joe Vanhoutteghem (who work under the shared name Lionel Goldstein) created a pair of two-minute films to promote the new Lynx fine fragrance collection. They take place in typically serious scenarios: a robbery and a funeral.
In “Robbery,” a woman threatens restaurant patrons and staff with a hammer, but her menacing act dissolves when she can’t resist the waiter’s scent. The two wind up grabbing the cash and fleeing from the police together.
“Funeral” is even darker. Sobbing mourners lean in to sniff the corpse, while one woman crawls into the coffin, declaring that she has fallen in love with the dead body because he smells so good.
The end of the ad reveals that the young man sprayed himself with Lynx right before he walked outside and was hit by a car.
Pushing humor to the extreme
LOLA MullenLowe executive creative director Tomás Ostiglia told ADWEEK that the brand and agency weren’t afraid to be “polarizing.”
“We know there will be die-hard fans of the campaign, and there will also be offended individuals,” he explained. “What we try here is pushing humor to the extreme, always aiming to be faithful to the ideas, and trying to forget the fear that comes with making certain jokes. The filter we chose was to ask ourselves at every step: ‘Is it funnier this way?’ And if the answer was a laugh, we went ahead with it.”
The films were set in Dungeness, England, where Mortier previously shot a documentary. The setting provided a “dark and nostalgic environment,” Ostiglia said.
“The casting, also somewhat inspired by the style of the series Sex Education, created this extraordinary universe of people who look normal and act authentically but with that touch of comedy, far from the stereotypes often seen in advertising,” Ostiglia added.
The campaign is running digitally and in cinemas this month across the U.K., Turkey, Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay.
