Marketing Brand Audit Report: Axe Deodorant's Brand Equity Position

This report presents a comprehensive brand audit of Axe Deodorant, a brand owned by Unilever, evaluating its brand equity position. It covers the brand's history, products, positioning, marketing communications (including social media, advertising, and brand elements like names, logos, and packaging), distribution channels, and competitive landscape. A SWOT analysis identifies key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report concludes with recommendations addressing the identified marketing challenges, offering insights into how Axe can further enhance its brand presence and market share. The analysis highlights Axe's focus on teenagers and young adults, its innovative marketing campaigns, and its strong distribution network, while also acknowledging challenges such as price point and potential negative perceptions of its advertising. The report also discusses the brand's competitors and their market share.

Running Head: FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 0
0
Foundations of marketing
DEODORANT AXE
NOVEMBER 5, 2018

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 1
Table of Contents
AXE DEODORANTS.....................................................................................................................2
Product category in Axe Deodorants...........................................................................................2
Positioning of Axe Deodorants....................................................................................................3
Marketing Communication of Axe Deodorants..............................................................................4
Social Media and Advertising.....................................................................................................5
Distribution of Axe Deodorants.......................................................................................................6
Competitors of Axe Deodorants......................................................................................................6
SWOT of Axe Deodorants...............................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 2
AXE DEODORANTS
Axe is a brand, owned by the British/ Dutch company Unilever. Unilever launched Axes
in France in 1983. It is connected to the other brand owned by Unilever i.e. Impulse. In addition,
Unilever found it difficult to attain trademark of Axe in the United Kingdom and Ireland and so
there this product was launched as Lynx.
In the new millennium, the brand was introduced with huge success in US and Canada.
Moreover, the organization also consolidated its deodorant portfolio by aligning with
overlapping male deodorants into the brand Axe. (Nacchia & Massaro, 2017). The brand success
is in the variants of fragrance which also evolves over time.
In 60 countries, Axe deodorants products are marketed where deodorant body sprays are
the mainstay of line (King, 2010). In addition, the Axe brand offers its first fragrance for women
in 2012 as – ‘Anarchy’. Currently, Axe contains 55 perfumes in their fragrance base where the
newest is created in 2017. The nose who worked on the fragrances is Ann Gottlieb.
Product category in Axe Deodorants
Axe Deodorants as a brand provides many types of fragrances with some of the variants
like twist, voodoo, Phoenix and some of related to dark dimensions (Srinivasan & Lu, 2014). In
spite of good fragrances, these products are also skin friendly and so they did not harm the men
skins in any case other than some of the body parts like eyes. All the variants of Axe Deodorants
are preliminarily tested by various dermatologist and this makes Axe deodorants unique in terms
of quality. Axe deodorants are also offered by the brand in attractive packaging such as bottle,
which can be easily twisted from the top. This design also helps people and customers to
memorize the brand uniquely in their mind.
In terms of innovation, the company also offers new designs made over previous design.
Moreover, on the body of deodorants, there is no secondary packaging other than the printed
label of Lynx in the other markets. In refer to packaging of their product, the bottle seems to be

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 3
very sturdy and appeals to the targeted groups. It can be also said that the bottle has a name itself
and that is why one can easily identify in the supermarkets. As the company offers convenient
packaging, the customer is more attracted to pay for the products.
Positioning of Axe Deodorants
Axe Deodorants mainly focuses on teenagers and young people so that it can raise the
entire demand. For explicit positioning, the company also advertise with the name “Chocolate
Boy” so as to attract number of customers towards the product (Biswas, Labrecque, Lehmann &
Markos, 2014). They uniquely position their product in the minds of the customers with the help
of emotional and physiological advertisements. For achieving this objective, the company try to
enhance the feeling of the customers to gain knowledge about the product by converting
prospective and potential customers to the loyal customers segment.
Other than positioning their products in the customer mind, the company also uniquely
displayed their products differs in several variants to the shelf of the supermarkets so that to
make them notice to the customer in an effective way. Axe deodorants also use extensive TV ads
and conduct many campaigns to increase the brand user confidence and make them always go
with the Axe. In 2014, Axe had a profile lunch of its new fragrance “Axe Peace” and this type of
campaign is used by the brand on a constant basis so as to make the customer engaged with the
new fragrances (McIntyre, 2013). Other than TV commercials, the brand also uses the help of
sponsored events and digital platforms i.e. internet media. Moreover, the packaging of Axe
deodorants itself creates a unique position in the minds of the customers.
Marketing Communication of Axe Deodorants

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 4
Marketing communication is an important aspect of any organization as this help in
bridging a gap between the organization and customers. The biggest strength of the brand is the
underlying message or the DNA that makes the customers high on confidence. Axe deodorants
always come up with new fragrances and campaigns (McIntyre, 2013). This also followed by a
series of launches of variants in each year. In addition, this makes the customers surprise with the
several new editions like Dark Temptation.
The integrated brand elements of Axe Deodorants also connect them with the customers
in a holistic manner and these brand elements include – Brand name, logo, slogans, tagline,
packaging and URL. These attributes not only resembles the products in the customer mind but
also gives the brand a competitive advantage.
1. Brand Name – Axe or Lynx is a brand name resembles male grooming products.
Its name is Lynx in countries like UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and
China, however, in other countries, it is known as Axe. This brand was inspired
by other Unilever brands, impulse (Lunyal, 2014). Most scent names usually have
a shower gel and sometimes relates to the antiperspirant/deodorants stick and an
aftershave lotion.
2. Logo – Axe represents a vector logo, which is designed by Unilever in Adobe®
Illustrator® format. The axe traditionally represents both work and war.
3. Slogans – Slogans help the company in creating a strong presence in the minds of
the customers. There are various Axe deodorants slogans as per their different
variants. These are – The Axe Effect, Find your Magic, Love at First Sniff and
Smell Good All Day Long.
4. URL – The URL of Axe deodorants resembles the web address of their official
website or web address. In scientific term, it is also known as domain address
(Sayamber & Dixit, 2014). The online marketing team of Axe Company makes
various efforts to bring their URL or official websites to the top place in search
engines against their competitors. Their official URL address is -
https://www.axe.com/. This URL or websites also includes several web pages,
which includes relevant information related to the products or brand such as their
vision, objectives, types of product line and information of celebrity who

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 5
endorsed their products. This helps the customer to get prior information about
the company and their products, which also creates awareness.
5. Characters, Design and Information – On their deodorants packaging, several
characters are printed in different font and sizes that look attractive and purse the
customer to buy their products. On the other hand, the design is also uniquely
round-to-square, in aerosol shaping technology. The necessary information is
printed on the outside of the packaging such as manufacturing data, ingredients,
price and many more.
6. Packaging – Packaging of the product always place an important role in the
marketing of the respective product. The packaging of their various deodorants
makes the customer fell premium in terms of viewing and handling. Their new
design is a step ahead towards their old design i.e. twist action (Srinivasan & Lu,
2014). In their new design, the operation team ensure the bottle is locked when
not in use and the button is flush with the top. Twisting the top lifts the button up
and then inclines it backwards into the ready-to-use position. As the button rises,
it reveals a flash of colour specific to the variant.
Social Media and Advertising
Social Media Marketing is all about reaching to the fan and customer with a platform or
medium and spread necessary message and information (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). As a global
company, it is important for the organization to launch digital campaigns on a continuous basis.
Axe deodorants new products are promoted via social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter. Axe has 3,901,056 likes on Facebook and around 3,749,130 follow and get updates on
their Facebook page. Similarly, on Twitter, Axe has around 126.1 followers. Axe makes all sorts
of products with the help of various campaigns on these social media platforms and this not only
creates awareness among the people but also increases brand loyalty. Axe believe that with the
help of social media, they can disrupt the landscape in the industry.
In addition, the company also focus on spending heavy amount on advisements and
promotional activities. The management team of Axe deodorants believes that for maintaining

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 6
the culture of the brand in the market, advertising on television will be best approach (Benmiled-
Cherif, Kaufmann & Manarioti, 2016). For example, in the advertisement of their dark
temptation flavour of deodorant, there is a boy-passing roadside and then by smelling the
fragrance, girls attracted. Therefore, it can be said that it is one of the best strategy adopted by
Axe and so the products can be promoted among the customers and teenagers.
Distribution of Axe Deodorants
Axe is sole in more than 200 regions and countries. In addition, Axe deodorants also
penetrate both urban and rural areas and this shows that the brand has a strong marketing
logistics network and the brand confirms that their products are all available in almost all
supermarket and hypermarkets including small grocery shops. Moreover, the brand also makes
all the products available on various e-commerce channels like Amazon and Flip kart which also
helps the market to increase the market share and expand its reach (Drossos, Kokkinaki, Giaglis
& Fouskas, 2014).
Competitors of Axe Deodorants
In deodorant market, competition is strong as each brand established a sort of niche
market for itself. In addition, various factors create a strong base in the industry such as research
& development in each company and changing preference of customers with all these are
influenced by various factors.
Moreover, competitors like Nivea Men’s deodorant already entered the market at the end
of 2007. This also overtakes Park Avenue by coming up with various aspirational in the
products. Currently, Unilever has 64% market share in the Australian deodorant market and this
represents positive sales of the Axe Deodorants. In addition, most (82%) of the deodorants were
purchases from supermarkets (Dzuhrina, 2018).

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 7
SWOT of Axe Deodorants
This includes an external and internal analysis of the business environment of the Axe
deodorant market. It is divided into Strength, Weakness, Threats and Opportunities.
1. Strengths – The major strength of the Axe Deodorant is in its investment in the
advertising and promotional activities which increase more awareness as compare
to the other brands. Also, this segment gets support from a strong distribution
network of Unilever. The company also constantly coming up with innovative
marketing strategy and this differs them from their competitors. For example, Call
me campaign.
2. Weakness – The prices of Axe deodorants are bit high and this makes them come
into luxurious segment, which cannot be used, on daily basis. In addition,
sometimes their advertisement also ignored by the educated people who not
preferring an advertisement showing women as an object. In addition, all the
different variants of Axe deodorant relatively come in same designing and
packaging (Fulgoni, 2018).
3. Opportunities – Fashion conscious male population is increasing day by day.
Moreover, the grooming industry of this segment is rising and a huge untapped
market of around $2.5 million. Moreover, Axe has a huge potential in the segment
of female population. As Axe brand is backed by Unilever, there is more scope of
expansion and gaining the market share worldwide.
4. Threats – Axe Deodorants can face serious threats from the various imported
brands such as Nivea, Set Wet, Wild Stones, etc. There can also have a threat
from the local markets. Moreover, as Axe deodorant are imported to more than
one countries, various government and international trade policies affects the
price.

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 8
Conclusion
Axe has a success story that is immensely difficult to emulate. The marketing and
promotional strategy of Axe deodorants are also very unique and novel. The brand value can also
be analyzed by the various insight in the report. It can also be said that Axe has several
advantages of a strong distribution channel of Unilever. The brand also has the potential to enter
into the women segment and gain competitive advantage.
Therefore, by making people understand the needs for a deodorant, the company can gain
a unique position in the market and this makes them deliver their product to many countries.
Recommendations
In the present scenario, Axe deodorant is positioned as a product, which used to attract
the opposite sex. Unilever need to focus on making it’s a consumer wear AXE daily. The
company also need to increase their advertising budget so that to expand on other platforms too
such as digital marketing, billboards, and sales promotion.
Axe can also penetrate the market more effectively if they educate the customers about
the different types of fragrance, as the competition is of most innovative fragrance in the
deodorant industry. This can be done effectively by the various market campaign on social media
sites like Facebook and Instagram.
The different variants of Axe products can also be endorsed by various celebrities as this
will create a unique impact on the minds of the customers.
This all will give Axe an extensive control of the market in the deodorant industry.

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 9
References
Benmiled-Cherif, H., Kaufmann, H. R., & Manarioti, A. (2016). The influence of brand
community on co-creation: A cross national study of the brand AXE in France and
Tunisia. World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable
Development, 12(2-3), 285-299.
Biswas, D., Labrecque, L. I., Lehmann, D. R., & Markos, E. (2014). Making choices while
smelling, tasting, and listening: The role of sensory (dis) similarity when sequentially
sampling products. Journal of Marketing, 78(1), 112-126.
Drossos, D. A., Kokkinaki, F., Giaglis, G. M., & Fouskas, K. G. (2014). The effects of product
involvement and impulse buying on purchase intentions in mobile text
advertising. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 13(6), 423-430.
Dzuhrina, I. (2018). SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY: HOW UNILEVER ENGAGE WITH ITS
CONSUMERS. Jurnal Ilmiah Komunikasi Makna, 2(1), 39-40.
Fulgoni, G. M. (2018). Are You Targeting Too Much? Effective Marketing Strategies for
Brands. Journal of Advertising Research, 58(1), 8-11.
Hoffman, D. L., & Fodor, M. (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your social media
marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), 41.
King, J. (2010). An axe to grind: risky rhetoric in Unilever brand marketing. African Journal of
Rhetoric, 2(1), 179-209.
Lunyal, V. (2014). Examining the Discourse of Perfume Advertisements: An Analysis of the
Verbal and the Visual. Journal of NELTA, 19(1-2), 117-131.
McIntyre, M. P. (2013). Perfume packaging, seduction and gender. Culture Unbound: Journal of
Current Cultural Research, 5(2), 291-311.
McIntyre, M. P. (2013). Perfume packaging, seduction and gender. Culture Unbound: Journal of
Current Cultural Research, 5(2), 291-311.

FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING 10
Nacchia, F., & Massaro, V. (2017). A joint linguistic-marketing analysis of brand and product
names: the case of Unilever. Lingue e Linguaggi, 22, 169-186.
Sayamber, A. B., & Dixit, A. M. (2014). Malicious URL detection and
identification. International Journal of Computer Applications, 99(17), 17-23.
Srinivasan, S., & Lu, W. F. (2014). Development of a supporting tool for sustainable fmcg
packaging designs. Procedia CIRP, 15, 395-400.