Norelco Campaign Aims for a Razor Under Every Tree

In the wake of its successful ShaveEverywhere campaign for the BodyGroom body razor, Philips Norelco has created a holiday microsite promoting its SmartTouch-XL shaving product.

Tribal DDB produced the site and online ads, which are part of an integrated campaign targeting women who might give the razor as a gift. Separately, the agency refreshed the ShaveEverywhere effort with a holiday theme.

The microsite for the SmartTouch-XL suggests that the gift says something about the giver. A video host offers examples of a few bad gifts, including a red snowflake sweater and a dog-shaped mug, before asking site visitors to submit a list of previous gifts they’ve given for analysis. After engaging in a moment of speculation of the giver’s psychological make-up, he proffers the razor as an ideal combination of daily usefulness and shared benefit for both shaver and spouse.

“The objective was to resonate with women, to get them to consider the Philips Norelco SmartTouch-XL,” said Steve Nesle, executive creative director at Tribal DDB. “The insight was women want to do right when it comes to getting their significant other a gift. We thought it would be fun and also practical to devise a gifting system loosely based on psychology, and sort of fun.”

The campaign targets women between 35 and 54 and who are married or in a long-term relationship. To direct visitors to the site, Tribal DDB created an online campaign using PointRoll and standard IAB units. The media buy included placements on MSN, Yahoo, Shopping.com, iVillage, NYMag.com, MySimon.com, and HGTV. TV and print executions sharing some of the same elements were created separately.

The agency also completed a refresh of its much discussed ShaveEverywhere.com site for the Bodygroom razor. The site remains largely the same, with a tag overlay of two Christmas ball ornaments and the text “makes a sleek, smooth gift.”

“There was a refresh, but we were very careful not to mess with what wasn’t broken,” said Nesle.

The creative team worked with Carat on a media buy to reinvigorate traffic, including a placement on the YouTube homepage. In the time surrounding the promotion, the original music video filmed for the site won about 24 honors on the site, and was viewed over 350,000 times.

“We know that there’s so many people out there that haven’t seen the site,” said Tribal DDB Managing Supervisor Mark Evans. “We are getting out there and introducing the Bodygroom.”

Another provocative ad featured the same actor from the ShaveEverywhere site holding two Christmas ball ornaments and the text “trim more than the tree this holiday.” Ads ran on Maxim.com, CollegeHumor.com, EbaumsWorld.com and ShavingStuff.com.

Evans points out the fundamental difference between the ShaveEverywhere site and the gift profile site for the SmartTouch-XL. The gift profile site “is part of a multi-channel program designed to target women through TV, print, online and paid media,” Evans said. “ShaveEverywhere was more of a social media approach. It depended less on paid media.”