A Selfmaker not only defines the courageous spirit and gritty attitude that’s aspirational to younger Canadians, but also reflects the brand purpose of Axe. Axe has always been rooted in confidence, and with the Selfmaker campaign, Axe wanted Canadian guys to feel confident to succeed on their own terms.

Selfmakers don’t just climb the ladder, they have the confidence to build their own and our campaign needed to ignite this same spirit in others. Our Selfmakers needed to embody that mindset, and provide relatable examples of guys with the confidence and grit to make things happen.

Instead, we decided to pursue individuals across different creative or business verticals and tell the most inspirational part of their journey on their way to carve out their own path – their “fuck-it” moment when they threw caution to the wind and had the guts to abandon the path well-trodden to make something happen.

We created a digital content rollout that encompassed long-form editorial pieces alongside shorter features intended for pre-roll and social media.

The longer form content – the “manifesto” videos - gave a more in-depth look into the craft of our Selfmakers, their journey, their “fuck it” moment, and their aspirations. The shorter, pre-roll content was a quick taste of the campaign, still highlighting our Selfmakers but just enough to entice viewers to learn more.

To generate online and word-of-mouth chatter around the campaign we worked with targeted social influencers across the different verticals that corresponded to our Selfmakers, which allowed us to ground the campaign in the ‘everyday man.’

We also focused on obtaining earned media from relevant cultural outlets alongside traditional marketing media.

Finally, we launched www.selfmaker.ca as a central hub for all of our content.

Axe’s market share grew +100bps immediately following the airing of Selfmaker.

AXE’s MWB attributes Cool/Trendy and Understands the Needs of Men grew by +3 and +2 pts respectively for the first time since 2012.

We saw an increase of +4.2% in Men 25 to 34 that agree/strongly agree that Axe is modern/up to date, which was one of our key tasks with the campaign.

Our videos earned over 4M video views, at a 19% engagement rate (target 2%) and a VTR of 78%.

Our engagement rate delivered 7.74% with $0.16 CPE, where the benchmark is 2% and a $0.50 CPE.

CPV benchmark is $0.20 and Axe Canada’s was $0.11, which is 45% lower than the average.

Axe also had an 18.78% view rate and the average is about 10%.