The Challenge

Gillette had achieved leadership in India. How do you accelerate further growth?

Our Objective

Get Indian men shave more often.

The Insight

87% women prefer to go out with clean-shaven men in the evening

Idea

A women's movement against men's 'Evening Stubble'

Execution:

The term 'Evening stubble' got women all fired up. They threatened to make men crave if they did not shave.

In response, Gillette launched the Fusion Gamer – a razor that makes shaving effortless, even twice a day.

The razor was launched in a moving train in the evening. Celebrities also got on board the train too.

Outcome:

The campaign received free media coverage worth over USD 4.1 million.

Over 3.5 billion free editorial media impressions.

Sales went up by 16%..

What makes this a strong PR case?

We exposed a startling Nielsen report - 87% women prefer to go out with clean-shaven men in the evening.

We then coined the term ‘Evening Stubble’ which was fresh and deeply rooted to a strong women insight. Top female celebrities joined the war and expressed their dislike for ‘Evening Stubble’ at appearances.

They told men to shave or crave. This was an extremely bold statement for the Indian media.

Married women went so far as to say that they would sleep in separate rooms, creating front-page news.

Finally, a group of men launched the Fusion Gamer by shaving in a moving train in the evening! The news cascaded further when celebrities got into train and shaved.

The Fusion Gamer’s 5 blade technology reduces pressure on your skin, making shaving effortless, even twice a day. Our creative solution leveraged this differentiating feature, thus making it relevant to our product.

Women openly embraced “Evening Stubble” and used it as a weapon in order to express their feelings. This proves that the idea was fresh and deeply rooted to a strong insight.

Lastly, Gillette’s brand purpose is about helping men make a difference in their world. Our campaign clearly demonstrates how an ‘evening shave’ can create an everlasting impression on women and cause our men to make a difference in the world.

• The campaign received free media coverage worth over USD 4.1 million - the highest-ever in Gillette India history.

• Over 3.5 billion free editorial media impressions.

• Over 500 million digital impressions.

• For the first time, Gillette India trended on twitter with #shaveorcrave becoming India’s No.1 trend for over three days.

• We witnessed India’s biggest blogging outburst by women, with over 500 blogs and a reach of over 34 million.

• Gillette India share grew by 1.2 points, reaching its highest ever share.

• Sales went up by 16% in spite of an existing high base.