In January 2012, AXE launched Anarchy— the first variant with a complimentary scent For Her— across television, print, digital, interactive TV, and Apple mobile devices. The centerpiece of the campaign was a graphic novel starring AXE’s Facebook fans as characters in the cross-country spread of Anarchy. The Apple mobile experience (iAD) successfully translated this multi-faceted campaign into a vibrant, compact experience and debuted the first comic reader in an iAD — exceeding engagement benchmarks by 100% on iPhone and 30% on iPad.

The mainscreen of the iAD evoked the graphic novel, with each panel leading to a different feature, always allowing users to navigate back to the main screen by tapping a ‘Menu’ button in the lower left corner. The Anarchy spot, a teaser video, and a graphic novel trailer were all accessible in the ‘Watch Videos’ gallery.iPhone and iPad users spent 45% and 30% of their time interacting with the graphic novel reader, designed with the premium functionality of a consumer app to give guys a taste of the story being created online. Tap and swipe behavior to navigate allowed readers to switch between device orientations to get the best angle on the artwork creating an intuitive and engaging reading experience. A heart-pounding soundtrack also reinforced the story.

Once hooked, guys could get the whole graphic novel by emailing themselves a link. The ‘Send Graphic Novel’ feature opened the users email composer pre-populated with a brief message and a link to the full PDF. And, for the first time in an iAd, guys were encouraged to spread the Anarchy by sending the graphic novel to their friends. Additionally, OS5 users had the option to download the story directly to their PDF reader.

In the ‘Download Wallpaper’ section, users were offered a free Anarchy themed wallpaper and challenged to unlock four more by completing product-related gyroscopic challenges. For example, the Body Spray For Him level required the user to perform a signature branded move known colloquially as ‘pit, pit, chest’ as though the device were a can of AXE. A successful ‘application’ of the Body Spray was rewarded with a new wallpaper and information about the product.

Strategically implementing a spectrum of visual cues, including a solely visual banner (another first for the iAD), helped generate compelling tapability. This process elicited impressive click-through-rates performing 40% higher than the Apple benchmark in the first week.