Situation:

In 1915, for the first time in mass media, women were told by Harper's Bazaar to remove their "objectionable (body) hair." That same year, the first female razor was launched.

Since then, not much has changed. Women are still shamed for their body hair. In fact, women's body hair has been deemed so un-feminine that razor brands have refused to acknowledge it exists. Commercials show women "shaving" perfectly smooth, airbrushed legs.

Brief:

The brief was to create a realistic portrayal of women's bodies in a razor commercial for the first time in a century. And to reinforce that shaving was a choice, not an expectation.

Objectives:

Create a piece of content that got the world to reevaluate how they think about female grooming and to empower women to do whatever they want with their bodies. No one should be telling them what they can do, especially a razor company.

The idea was to showcase real women's body hair being shaved - and not shaved - in a razor commercial for the first time in the category's history.

It's the exact opposite of what the competition shows women in their razor ads. Their commercials show women 'shaving' already shaved and airbrushed legs.

We showed beautifully shot leg hair, underarm hair, toe hair, happy trails, arm hair, being shaved or not. Which earned us a lot of attention, reinforcing shaving is a choice, not an expectation.

Insight:

For too long, women have been made to feel about ashamed about their “un-feminine” body hair. Project Body Hair simply acknowledges that women have body hair (something razor brands have refused to do for the last 100 years) and celebrates their choice to be able to do whatever they want with it.

Key Message:

Shaving is a personal choice. And however, whenever, if ever, you want to shave, Billie will be here.

Target Audience:

We targeted modern, confident and savvy women who want to look and feel great, on their own terms. They do not appreciate being pandered to or told how they should look – they demand respect and transparency.

Creation & Distribution:

The campaign launched at Times Square with a teaser 15-second digital billboard.

This film was distributed online via social media.

And the campaign photography was uploaded to Unsplash for anyone to use for free.

We launched this body hair discussion with a 15-second teaser ad on one of the most prominent digital billboards in New York's Time Square a few days before the official campaign launch.

On June 26, 2018, we released our film on social media (YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook, Billie homepage, etc). We also donated all of the beautiful photography of women with body hair we took during the campaign to the photography website UnSplash for anyone to use.

We encouraged everyone (media outlets, bloggers, the general public) to use these images for free and post them far and wide on the internet - this is our way of making the internet a little fuzzier.

The campaign received overwhelming support from women (and men!) all over the world –

we received 3.3+ billion earned media impressions across 23 countries, 21+ million views (60% organic) and over 1.3 million shares & comments. And while we were reminding women that shaving is a choice (not an expectation), we actually ended up completely selling out of razors shortly after launch.

The campaign is also starting an industry trend - inspiring both the biggest player and newer brands in the category to follow suit and feature body hair in their communication.