Axe: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL, 1

Credits & Description:

Category: Illustration
Advertiser: AXE
Product/Service: AXE ANARCHY
Agency: RAZORFISH
Executive Creative Director: Frederic Bonn (Razorfish)
Group Creative Director: Pierre Odendaal (Razorfish)
Creative Lead: Alex Bodman (Razorfish)
Creative Lead Design: Lian Chang (Razorfish)
Associate Creative Director: Jennifer Shreve (Razorfish)
Art Director: Wii Yatani (Razorfish)
Senior Designer: Luke Li (Razorfish)
Designer: Nolan Constantino (Razorfish)
Associate Experience Designer: Kyle Outlaw (Razorfish)
Senior Producer: Michael Prieto/Michael Moscardini (Razorfish)
Senior Planner: Phillip Lee (Razorfish)
Client Engagement: Barbara Ward Thall/Arminda/Klier/Deborah Korono (Razorfish)
Creative Service Manager: Belinda Lopez/Yael Bloom (Razorfish)
Editor: Gene Graham (Razorfish)
Analytics: Elliot Weiner/Shira Gilboa (Razorfish)
President: Frank Mastromauro (Aspen Comics)
Illustrator: Franchesco/Joe Benitez (Aspen Comics)
Music Production: Koo Abuali/Troy Maccubbin/Randy Ematra (FireWire Music Company\Apollo Music)
Video Production: Duffy Higgins (A76 Productions)
Technical Production: Julian Pscheid (Emerge Interactive)
Media placement: Youtube Channel Experience - Online Brand Channel - 2- January 2012
Media placement: Tablet Site - Tablet Devices - 24-Feb 2012
Describe the brief from the client
AXE created the US body spray category in 2002. 10 years later, this category is crowded and competitive, so every new campaign must work harder in the fight for market share.
Enter Anarchy, the brand’s first male/female paired fragrance. The launch was supported by a broadcast campaign about the 'chaos unleashed' when both guys and girls have the AXE Effect.
Our brief was to bring this fantasy to life in digital and social channels for AXE’s traditional target (males 16-24), while also making women a part of the brand’s story. The business objective was to drive category growth of +3%.
Describe the challenges and key objectives
Our strategy was to drive engagement with a target audience that love showcasing their creativity and are hungry for 15 megabytes of fame.
The creative solution was Anarchy: The Graphic Novel - the first comic book written by, and starring, its readers.
The key challenge was developing a cool and intuitive UI for an original content format. Anarchy: The Graphic Novel was hosted on both the brand’s YouTube channel and a custom tablet site. These destinations had to allow for differing interactions: reading comic book content, making suggestions, voting and viewing behind-the-scenes content.
Describe how you arrived at the final design
The design mirrored the strategy of giving consumers online fame for their creative contributions. Beneath each page, we called attention to the consumers inspired who inspired the storyline. When they were illustrated into the comic, we 'tagged' them, so that on rollover, their profile picture and name appeared. The effect was to reinforce that this is a truly social experience, without overwhelming the compelling comic book content itself.
Aesthetically, the visual identity for the destinations merged the broadcast materials with the comic book aesthetic. The graffiti cues on the Anarchy cans themselves served as further inspiration.
Give some indication of how successful the outcome was in the market
By the end of April, the illustrations spanned 8 chapters and over 60 pages. More than 50 passionate fans had been illustrated into the novel.
Anarchy has become the best-selling body spray in the US, driving a 10% increase in market share (year to date versus the same period in 2011).
Ultimately, 1m+ people have visited Anarchy: The Graphic Novel on YouTube, while across the web the trailer has gone viral, with 3m+ views.
The story has been shaped by over 50,000 votes and 15,000 suggestions. 34% of engagement was from female consumers – unprecedented for an AXE campaign.