Thanks to 2008’s ‘India Votes: to Shave or Not’ debate, men now recognised the importance of shaving. But only did it for special occasions, for all other occasions picking up the razor was seen as a chore. We now needed to ensure that Indian men shaved regularly, with Gillette Mach3.

Conventional advertising wouldn’t create this shift in attitudes. We commissioned a survey that showed, crucially, women preferred clean-shaven men. So we asked women for their support and sparked off the movement, WALS – Women Against Lazy Stubble. We started by releasing the provocative survey findings, creating immediate buzz and discussion on key news services, social media, television, print, radio and on-ground. We organised PR events, live polls and trials with celebrities, Bollywood-stars, and socialites. Leading newspapers, radio stations, news/lifestyle TV channels, and magazines all tracked the WALS movement.We initiated a competition for the town with the most clean-shaven men, and even successfully tried for the Guinness Book of Records with the biggest “Shavethon” in history!

With the powerful PR model, the campaign achieved 7x higher free media value than our prequel campaign last year.The results were record-breaking: 500% increase in sales and 400% increase in market share!

We created a holistic, PR-driven initiative. We started by releasing the provocative findings, creating immediate buzz and discussion on key news services, newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines.Celebrities, bollywood-stars, news-anchors and radio-DJs all joined the discussion; while live polls and trials in malls/cineplexes heated up the action on shaveindia.com. We initiated a PR-led competition event for the town with the most clean-shaven men. We chose three famous actresses to persuade men from their towns to get a shave. The city with the largest number of clean-shaven men would win.

We even went for the Guinness Book of Records with the biggest shaving event in history! 'Shavethon’ had more than 2,000 men experience a clean shave with Gillette Mach3.

National media referred to WALS as the ‘voice of empowered women’. With the powerful PR model and the key tactic of enlisting women, the campaign found a life of its own.

The campaign set new records (not only for Mach 3, but for the entire Gillette franchise): Mach 3 sales went up 5 times during the activity period: Highest ever.Mach 3 market share increased 4 times: Highest everThe overall Gillette razor franchise volume share reached 58.1%: Highest everOverall, Gillette blades value share crossed 40% for 1st time!At $2.5mil the campaign also achieved 7 times higher free media value than our prequel campaign last year: The highest ever!‘Shavethon’ was recorded as the biggest shaving event ever in history in the Guinness Book of Records. “We are extremely pleased to know that our initiative has reached such epic proportions with an overwhelming number of men and women in the country showcasing their support, which has enabled us to create such a successful movement for the second year in a row.” - Sumeet Vohra, Marketing Director, P&G India