Indian Men Wanted on Her Boat Party

This Ad caught my attention a few weeks back. At least 9 out of 10 times I choose to skip the YT PreRoll ads. Once in a while a brand makes that effort to make an ad which creates enough intrigue in the first 5 seconds for me to delay the 'skipping' routine. I must admit that I didn't even consider skipping this one. On the contrary, I remembered the Ad, the Brand, discussed it with friends, and any mention of AXE makes images from the boat pop up in my head. So far so good eh?

Is that the objective of the ads? Perhaps not..

None of the Ads actually made me consider calling the number. Yes it was a little intriguing but I never actually thought it's a 'real invitation'.

When I decided to write this article I called them and realized that the objective of this campaign is to drive sales as they want me to buy a can of AXE to participate. [I missed "Buy Axe" in the TVCs]

So where the first ad that I watched intrigued me, left an image in my head, made me shake my head to a nice tune which I now associate with AXE... It didn't quite make me believe in the invitation. However, things got worse with the following TVCs:

#1: Grizzly Bear Ad: One of the most common stereotype about Indian Men are the hair. It's definitely not a feature that the TG for the ad is very fond of.. so when the 'white women' call it manly... it just seems ridiculous if not offensive.

#2: Momma's Boy: Then they go on to take a shot on guys living with parents and watching soaps with their Moms. Here for a second I thought someone published the wrong ad creative. How could this have gone on-air?

What Indian Men want to know (Arnab style) is that how could AXE strip them of their manliness on national television and then ask them to go buy a can of AXE? What am I missing here that the brand managers saw? "In good humour" could be one argument but in that case no such call to action can be expected - "Buying to participate".

Some marketeers might argue that the product wasn't even present in the Ad but I don't see that as a problem. I think that was something that was innovative in this ad and it worked. Deodrant as a product is very common and everyone knows how to use it. Most brands talk about how it attracts women (perhaps done the most by AXE). Boat Party Campaign completely broke that deodrant ad routine. Perhaps this is why it got trolled and discussed (positive or negative).

The idea of the campaign was to entice Indian Men [with beautiful foreigners in Goa] and make them buy AXE in the process. A sales/sampling campaign which on the face of it looks alright. This campaign is not about a specific fragrance of AXE or its effect on women. However, it had to be believable enough to generate the sales. I don't know the response it got but I'm quite certain that better scripts would have led to a much better response. I'm sure Indian Men have some qualities which could have also been true as well as pleasant.

Verdict: Great concept got lost in translation