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Slicing through borders isn't easy, even when your name is Axe.
The no-nonsense Axe was neither a rugged chopping implement nor the moniker for a mean-faced championship wrestler, though. Rather, it was the handle for a range of male grooming products within the Unilever corporate family. Indeed, according to an expert at the European Business Conference's panel titled "Managing Brands Across Multiple European Markets," a prime goal of the Axe brand was to gently introduce young men to the concept of using fragrance—beginning with Axe body spray.
However, recalled Frances Britchford, finding the best direction for Axe's strategy in Europe proved a special challenge.
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A graceful, fine-featured Briton, Britchford is now a vice president of marketing for Pepsi-Cola North America. Ten years ago she was a lead advertising executive on the Axe project. Her Axe experience illustrates some of the particular conundrums MBA graduates might face when marketing brands across borders, she said. Moderator Nirmalya Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing at HBS; Chris Parsons, senior brand strategy manager for Guinness lager; and Gianni Montezemolo (HBS MBA '67), a director at A.T. Kearney, Inc. also participated and shared experiences.
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| Certain things are just brick walls; you need to think your way around them. | |
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| —Frances Britchford |
One of the first challenges with Axe was its very identity, said Britchford. The identity wasn't altogether straightforward. The word Axe in many European countries, for instance, was not pronounced "Axe" but rather the softer "Ak-seh"; and in some markets the name was Axis. The range included a variety of products with their own characters and personalities. Key countries targeted were the U.K., Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. The challenge for Britchford's advertising team, she said, was to unify the European brand line and create one common advertising campaign.
Simple, right?
"We did all the obvious things," Britchford told the HBS group with a weary smile. "We visited all of those markets; met with the agencies and clients. We really tried to understand what the brand was all about in those markets. We heard all about differences: how the French brand was different from the Italian brand. We were struggling to find the common links."
Her team came up with what they thought was a good strategic plan. They were asked to revise it. They reworked it "and reworked it and reworked it," she said. "Nine months of this went by and we realized we were getting absolutely nowhere."
The problem—clear in hindsight—was that Britchford's advertising group wasn't merely grappling with a simple product such as crackers or ice cream across myriad borders. Instead, they ran smack into cultural differences that have intrigued and confounded anthropologists, tourists, and European residents forever.
"It's the whole rite-of-passage of men into the world of attractiveness to the opposite sex," she said. "Of all the categories you could try and find commonalities in, you were faced with all of these deep-rooted cultural differences across Europe." Every possible stereotype came into play.
"Here's a classic," Britchford told the HBS audience, "when we knew we were getting nowhere." She had taken one of the continent's marketing directors out for dinner. She put the question to him: "What is this? There are so many barriers going on; what's going on?"
According to Britchford, he replied, "The thing is, Frances, we will never buy advertising developed by the British. What do the British know about sexuality?"
Breakthrough
Rather than battle diehard stereotypes any further, Britchford et al switched gears. The breakthrough came when they decided to focus on the concept of "fragrance." For instance, Calvin Klein's Eternity was Eternity in every single country across the world, not just in Europe, she said. There was clearly a commonality of acceptable fragrances.
Her group decided to start from scratch and focus on the next Axe fragrance by building a completely new advertising concept around it. With a team consisting of people from each of the target countries, Britchford holed up at an English castle and brainstormed with a consultant who specialized in fashion and fragrance. "We just immersed ourselves in the trends, and in the end came up with concepts that were developed by all five countries that included a name, a personality, an image, a color scheme," said Britchford said. The clear winner for the new Axe fragrance product was Africa, which sported the color amber and expressed the theme of escapism that was very popular at the time. Africa became the number-one seller very quickly, she said.
Change the things you can effect, Britchford told the HBS audience, and don't bother with the rest. "Certain things are just brick walls; you need to think your way around them." Find the non-controversial piece of the project and build on that, she continued. Teamwork is vital when working across borders, she said. The new Axe ad campaign in the end needed to be a project that everyone felt they had created together.
And, she added, never say die. "Just keep going, because eventually you will break down that wall and something really good will come out of it."
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