Don’t let body odour brand you is one of the few Romanian communication campaigns that mixed marketing objectives with strong social & educational components.

The program was implemented for Unilever and it was preceded by two in depth studies and applied locally and internationally.According to the above mentioned studies, Romanian women only use one deodorant per year which positions our country among the last in Europe in terms of deodorant consumption.

Instead of simply targeting brand promotion, our campaign managed to communicate the brand and its values through an educational program addressing consumption habits beyond the bare symptoms of “purchase decisions”.The evaluation criteria were set in accordance with the ambitious objective of gaining field in terms of awareness and sales by subliminally generating a change in lifestyle. Tactically the campaign followed a 3 step action plan: seed the need – drop the bomb – amplification.

PR wise, the results proved the success of the initiative not only in terms of media coverage (over 90 articles and more than 10 TV & radio appearances) and ROI but also from a qualitative angle. The campaign had strong effects in terms of awareness and WOM.

The campaign was based on two professional studies:A global quantitative and comparative study (The truth about women’s beauty) applied worldwide in 14 countries.

A European quantitative and qualitative study pursued in 7 European countries.Campaign objectives: - Convince as many women as possible to use antiperspirant on a daily basis- Generate a national revolution against perspiration.- Create an association between the Rexona brand and the antiperspirant revolution, in the consumers’ mind.- Increase awareness for the deodorant category and for Rexona in particularTarget: - Core target: women, aged 18 to 40 living in urban areas- General public- Opinion leaders

Timing: 3 months/April - June 2008Unbranded viral messages: English women do it 5 times more often!The media event brought about the reveal of the brand behind the campaign: Rexona.It was preceded by a teaser whilst a perfume bottle invited journalists to the launch of a "perfume".The event was hosted by a panel of local VIP beauty specialists.A huge perfume bottle placed in the event hall revealed that what everyone expected to be the most incredible perfume, was actually PERSPIRATION.The Rexona experiment: one week without deodorant.A local VIP became an endorser of our campaign; living one week without deodorant. Her experiment was broadcast on TV & blogs every day.

The national debate: a dedicated edition of the most popular Sunday afternoon show held a debate about perspiration in a 5 hour marathon, eventually concluding the show with the signing of the Anti perspiration pact.

The campaign was one of the central subjects in the press for more than one month.The subject benefited from a record coverage: 90 dedicated press articles (18 print articles, 72 electronic articles) & 4,768 square centimeters of print coverage.The audience for the online articles raised to 9,177,672 persons, while the print audience summed up 2,152,600 persons.373,000 Romanians listened to our messages on the radio.234,000 unique receptors heard about the campaign on TV.The penetration degree of the online messages was 2,400,000 impressions and 745,000 unique visitors.The campaign’s blog www.ofacemmairar.ro was visited 52,598 times.Estimated AVE: 600.000 EuroBeyond the quantitative perspective, the reflection of the campaign in the press made one more proof of our success summing up a great diversity of approaches, from tabloid articles to interviews and campaign analysis articles; each of the generated articles offered a different approach.

The strategy was based on generating brand adhesion & increasing consumption by emphasising a need through an educational campaign.

The approach was based on a 3 steps strategy:i) Seed the need ii) Drop the bombiii) Amplification.

Each of these 3 stages addressed both opinion leaders and the general public.

The key messages we disseminated were: Perspiration blasts your reputation, body odour brands you! Introduce Rexona in your daily beauty routine!Communication channels: - National mass media for the general public and specialized mass media (glossy & lifestyle magazines, womens web sites).- Campaign blog: www.ofacemmairar.ro- Media partnership with the INTACT media group - one of the strongest Romanian media groups.For the opinion leaders: - Media event - Campaign blog- Press releases, both with general distribution and niche approaches (exclusive subjects communicated exclusively to some specific publications. i.e. scandalous approaches of the issue for tabloid magazines).

Romania is among the last countries in the world that is concerned about antiperspirant usage. Despite occupying leading positions in the hierarchies concerning investments in cosmetics and beauty accessories, Romanian women do not use deodorant. Moreover, they often substitute antiperspirant with luxury perfumes.Last year, the number of deodorants sold in Romania was 24,800,000 - less than one deodorant per capita.

The absence of the habit of using deodorant from the Romanians’ unwritten common sense code damages both their social life and the sales of the producing companies.In order to increase brand popularity and sales we need changes in mentalities and habits.