Am I Bowered

How Quickly did the Catchphrase Catch on? What we were particularly interested in was the speed with which the catchphrase caught on and for this we looked at the ‘Catchphrase’ sample of 200 participants. For the first 3 weeks people were seeing and hearing Bomb Chicks Way Way through paid for media but by week 4 they suddenly started using it themselves (Figure 5). 6 Figure 5: Week 4 the catchphrase took off The sample sizes were low so need to be treated with caution, but there was a clear shift in week 4.

Our tracking period only lasted 8 weeks in total, with two of those before the campaign started, so we were not able to see how usage developed, but at Being used? As well as using the catchphrase while seeing the ads on TV and Posters, we also saw it being used in social networks (although this was picked up under Online rather than Conversation) (Figure 6). Figure 6: In social networks Who was Using it? Perhaps not surprisingly usage of the catchphrase was most positive when the participant used it himself.

They were clearly very funny! However, it was also positive when girls used it and we did see our participants receiving texts from girls hey liked. Not surprisingly, although we hadn’t thought about this until we saw the results of the study, hearing the catchphrase was least positive when another boy used it. When we looked at the comments this was often because little brothers would annoy their older siblings with it (Figure 7)! Figure 7: Positivist by different groups In this sense it could be said that girls were more influential than boys, because our male target audience felt more positive about their usage of the catchphrase than they did when other boys used it. But if some of the experiences were negative, how Eng would it take for the catchphrase to become annoying? What about Whereat? Each time we saw a new TV execution launched, the positivist of the texts increased indicating that the campaign needed new executions to keep it fresh (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Positivist highest in first week of new execution When we looked at the Catchphrase stream and saw how negatively people were reacting to the catchphrase ‘Am I Powered’, used in the comedy series on TV by Catherine Tate, we could see that catchphrases could wear out relatively quickly (Figure 9). 8 Figure 9: Risk of whereat In fact, ‘Am I Powered’ got a bit of a boost when Tony Blair used it during Comic Relief, so this new context refreshed its perception slightly.

The learning from ‘Am I Powered’ was that Bomb Chicks Way Way should be allowed to burn brightly for a few weeks or months, but certainly wasn’t a year long campaign. In hindsight, the switch from Bomb Chicks Way Way to the next Axe campaign was probably slightly too soon, as the brand didn’t fully capitalism on the early momentum we saw the catchphrase gathering. For instance, we saw in the main message that young guys were starting to play with the catchphrase and make it their own. If we had continued to monitor the campaign in real time we would have seen the moment when it started to wear out.

However, with frequent refreshment of executions, it appeared from our study that it could go on a few months. Recommendations This new real-time research approach helped us to make some clear recommendations. Firstly, the combination of TV and Posters were working well as the Posters were reminding people of the TV ads and were prompting use of the catchphrase. Secondly, it was necessary to keep rolling out new creative executions to keep the campaign fresh. Thirdly, the campaign would wear out if kept going too long but could build momentum over a few months.

Finally, the activation was working less strongly because it wasn’t linked to the Bomb Chicks Way Way campaign. As a result, online was under-utilized and represented an opportunity for rolling out to other countries. Following these results, Milliner asked us to conduct a thorough evaluation of competitive online touchiness to ensure best practice for future campaigns. Results The combination of a reluctance product and successful advertising campaign, featuring a catchphrase, ensured that Lynx/Axe was able to meet its objectives of sustaining a price increase while growing sales.