This episode is sponsored by Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. You've probably seen the headlines, and yeah, there's a lot happening at WBD right now. But here's the thing. Change is happening everywhere. Media planning has never been this complicated. More platforms, more data, more pressure to drive results. And that's what WBD delivers. Iconic stories and the audiences who love them, so your brand shows up in the right place, at the right time, with real impact. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more. Hi, I'm Adrienne Pascarelli, Senior Editor of CMO Strategy and Commerce at AdAge. And welcome to another edition of the Marketers Brief Podcast, our weekly discussion about marketing news and trends that have the industry buzzing. When most people think of Axe body spray, they think of a cloud surrounding teenage boys. But Axe is working to challenge that perception with new products and campaigns. It's also getting into the FIFA World Cup marketing with a costume contest. Today we'll be talking with Dolores Asselini, who has been head of Axe US since 2024. Prior to that, she spent 11 years at other Unilever-owned brands such as Dove, after working at Avon more than a decade ago. She's going to tell us how Axe is striving to grow up with its customer base through both new products and marketing. But before we begin, I want to call your attention to a new awards program. AdAge mid-sized brand leaders honor senior in-house marketing leaders making a difference at mid-market brands, typically companies with $50 million to $1 billion in annual revenue. Does this sound like you or anyone you know? Find out more, including how to enter, at adage.com slash mid-sized leaders. Hi, Dolores. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me, Adrian. So let's jump right into this new raffle campaign, Axe, unveiled a few days ago ahead of the World Cup. Essentially, this is a costume contest. You're asking fans to showcase their wildest costume for the chance to win tickets to the World Cup. Can you tell me a bit about the strategy behind this campaign? So the excitement surrounding the FIFA World Cup 2026 really presented a massive opportunity for connection among young people, especially young guys. It's one of the few moments where you see this kind of global energy, shared experience, huge cultural moment, whether you're watching with your friends or in the stadium. So for us, it really felt like a natural moment to show up and to help our fans be a part of the energy, encouraging themselves to go out there with confidence, with a sense of humor, and a little bit of wax. So we felt it was really the right place for us to play. And that's really where the idea of smell your best when you look your worst came out of. So we are asking guys to wear their crazy costumes. We know they're already doing that. We know they're dressing up to watch their games, whether it's a crazy costume or crazy face paint. So we figured this was such a natural moment to bring our product in and help them make that connection, even when they're looking the worst. And it feels like you can really build loyalty with these consumers because it's so hard to get tickets for those people who end up winning the contest. Yes, absolutely. We're hearing that it's so difficult to get tickets. So as official sponsors, as one of the official sponsors, we're really excited to be able to offer the opportunity to get tickets by engaging with our brand, with our product, and really helping guys make that connection in real life, which we know was so hard to do today. And it gives you more opportunities to interact with your own customers. And also it should give you some user generated content too. Is that the expectation here? Absolutely. So this campaign is really the perfect combination of online and offline. So we know that young guys are on TikTok, they're creating content, they're commenting, they're part of the social conversation. So encouraging them to post UGC with our product in their crazy costume is a way to reach them in a place where they're already authentically living and communicating and engaging both with brands, with friends, and with communities. But at the same time, we want them to live their life outside of their phone. And that's where the idea of dressing up and going out and asking somebody out in person makes it such a fun campaign. It's inherently fun and quirky and different and a way for our guys to get out into the real world and try to make that connection with a little bit of fragrance and then post it online, right? We think that the creation of UGC is not just great for us, but it's also a great way for young guys to engage with each other and to put themselves out there in a way that is silly and quirky and is something that they're already doing today, right? They're already dressing up and being crazy. So giving them the opportunity to post it online and connect with each other through this craziness and this humor that is so inherent to young guys, we think is really fun. And we're really excited to see the content come through. And this is only, you're asking them only to post content on TikTok, or is it across all social channels? It's primarily on TikTok. And why just TikTok? Why not include Instagram? Is that because it's easier to track, easier to judge, or just because that platform is where your customers are? It's really where our customers are. TikTok is the community where our young guys are engaging the most That where we tailor most of our content to I believe But really the primary channel will be TikTok because that where most of our connection is happening And it the place where TikTok has been a place where traditionally users can be more unfiltered It really just a place where it's more humor comes through. It's less polished. A place like Instagram is where people just have to curate their content more. On TikTok, you can just be yourself, be funny, be silly. That's really how TikTok started, right? With the silly dances and people just saying, TikTok is my place where I can be myself. On Instagram, I have to do the filter and the curation and make my page look cohesive. TikTok is a place where people can just be themselves and be funny and be crazy. So we think that's the perfect opportunity and the perfect place for our guys to be themselves, put themselves out there in this crazy way and see how they can engage with each other. So we're really excited to see how that comes to life. And I know it's hard to make a splash in this crowded marketing environment. How did Axe approach breaking through the clutter and making a voice for itself when it comes to the World Cup and its marketing? Yeah. So for us, it really starts with being true to what Axe stands for, which is confidence, connection, and fragrance. So rather than trying to compete on just scale and say, you know, we're going to spend the most, be the biggest, have the biggest display or the biggest campaign. it's really about focusing on an idea that felt distinctive, unique to our brand, and really native to how and where our audience engages today. So this combination of the simple, really bold participation CTA and the social first platform like TikTok allows us to show up in a way that cuts through and feels culturally relevant. So we don't have the biggest budget of all the FIFA sponsors, but we think that in going out in a way that is authentically acts and authentically to who our audience is, which is these young guys that are looking for connection, feels like the right way for us to play. And it feels the most authentic and the way that we will stand out with our audience in a way that feels like us as a brand. and leaning into that in real life connection point feels especially relevant for Gen Z. That's really looking, I read all the time that they're looking to touch grass or looking to shop more in person, looking for these actual experiences. So kind of doing both seems like it should be helping you reach your target. Yeah, and access a brand has always been about that. We've always been about getting out there. Really the only way to experience fragrance is in person. So we've always been a brand that has been about building connection for young guys and helping them do that through fragrance. So we love this trend of people wanting to be out in the world and Jensi saying, I don't want to be stuck in my basement staring at my phone or staring at my computer. I want to get out into the world and experience life outside. And we help them do that by giving guys a little bit of self-care. By putting on fragrance, it gives them that level of confidence to go up to somebody new and build a connection. It is so funny talking about fragrance. You can only experience it in life. But last year, I remember I wrote about fragrance talk and how TikTok is like the, is to your point earlier, is a real place where people are so excited to talk and learn about fragrance. How would you describe the Axe? Like one of the most popular sprays that you guys have in your portfolio. How would you describe that on TikTok? Like what are the notes? Just curious. Oh, you mean for the specific fragrances? So we're going to describe one on TikTok. What would you say? Well, our TikTok is very chaotic, but I think in the best way, you know, young guys have such different communities for young guys. So we have things that are, you know, we speak to the anime community a lot. If you look at our TikTok page, because those are the guys that are responding to us and they love when we talk about our brand and understand their culture and what they care about. So you see a lot of that on our page. But then at the same time, speaking to fragrance and layering fragrances and the more serious part of our brand, we love to say that we take nothing seriously except for fragrance. And that's where that really comes through. So we have fragrances like Apollo that have been around for 20 years that people know and love and have been using forever. right so we were always targeting that young guys but I speak to guys all the time where my age and will say well I've been using Apollo for 15 years and it's my favorite fragrance and I always get compliments about it we don't have to explain the notes and the details everybody knows what everybody knows what Apollo smells like especially anybody that went to middle school in the early 2000s because it was just such an iconic fragrance and at the same time we have really decided to evolve with all these fragrance trends so through things like fragrance talk for example we really have always been a brand that has used amazing fragrances we've worked with top perfumers and as we thought about how we evolved this brand from those amazing SKUs like Apollo or Phoenix or Dark Temptation that are so iconic and have been around for so long we said let's take those fragrance credentials and take them into a premium space and that's what the fine fragrance collection came was born out of so the fine fragrance collection includes SKUs like blue lavender, cherry spritz, black vanilla that are just a little bit more sophisticated. They're based off of prestige colognes and really giving guys an opportunity to have cologne quality scents in a body spray at a more affordable price. So we have that as part of our TikTok page as well where we have some of those more serious and more almost grown up scents that are a little bit more niche than something like an Apollo that are really coming through in an interesting way on our page in a way that we didn't have five, six years ago. So we have really ensured that we grow up with some of our guys and give them opportunities beyond the fragrance that they've had for 20 years, which we still have, but we always want to make sure that we open the door for them to try new fragrances like a Blue Lavender or a Black Vanilla, which have been extremely popular since we launched them. And when did you launch them? Blue Lavender was about two years ago and Black Vanilla was about three years ago. And let's talk a bit about some of the other work that Axe has been doing this year. A while back, the brand unveiled a new bottle with controls that allowed users to spray less. This played into that well-known consumer perception of teenage boys overdoing it with their body spray, that kind of Axe Cloud idea. Can you talk a bit about why you rolled out that product and how you marketed it? Yeah, so over the years as a brand, we've heard the clear message from our consumers. Guys want to smell great, but they don't want to overdo it. Too often, Axe sprays delivered a really heavy mist that could end up feeling overpowerful or wasteful. So we have been working on this new spray technology to offer guys an opportunity to use our product without it feeling like too much and too overpowering. So this new spray technology delivers a more concentrated spray that feels lighter. It's more precise. It's a lighter mist, but also has a longer lasting scent. So it has the perfect combination of not feeling like you're living in an X cloud, which we heard a lot. Having been on this brand for a year and a half, I hear a lot, oh, the middle school locker room, the Axe Cloud. It's such a huge part of the brand's history. But at the same time, the great fragrance is also a part of that history. So through this technology and through this campaign, we're trying to maintain what made us great in the first place, which is the great fragrances, while also addressing the number one concern with our brand and with this category, which is that young guys overspray it. Our spray was too much, too heavy. It had too big of a cloud. And now we're addressing that with this new technology. So now you can have the best of both worlds. You can have the amazing fragrance with a lighter spray that lasts a little bit longer. I was talking to a marketer at Claire's, the Gen Alpha retailer recently about how they're connecting product and marketing more tightly in order to respond faster to trends. And I'm wondering after hearing about the new spray bottles and the new products there. I'm wondering how a brand like Axe functions with products and marketing. How closely together does your team sit with the products team? Very closely. So I, as the head of Axe in the US, I oversee innovation, engagement, and performance. So my team works with R&D to bring products to market. So extremely close. And that's always where we start, right? We want to make sure that our consumers get the best experience, both from a packaging standpoint, from a design standpoint, and from a fragrance standpoint. So we really always start there. We want to make sure that we have amazing fragrances because that is the heart of our brand. And the delivery method, the can, the spray technology is always a part of it. So evolving that in 2026 was a huge priority for us. We wanted to remove the number one barrier with the product, and that was the spray technology. So as we go into 2026 and beyond, we want to think consumer first. And this is the number one thing that we change. So we're really excited to bring this innovation to life. Let's take a quick break for this message from our sponsor. This episode is sponsored by Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. You know those moments in entertainment when you're not just watching, you're feeling it? That's what Warner Brothers Discovery delivers to audiences every day. From the roar of live sports arenas, to the clash of dragon-ruled kingdoms, from the front lines of breaking news, to the heartbeat of busy kitchens, WBD Advertising combines this incredible IP with modern ad tech and a partner-first mindset to turn this cultural attention into real connection and measurable conversion. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more. So as you mentioned earlier, Axe has a long history of using fun and cheeky humor in its marketing. Why is that a cornerstone to Axe's approach and how does it align with your play for Gen Z consumers specifically? So being a brand that's about humor, fragrance, and attraction has always been the core of our brand. Since we launched in France in 1983 and in the U.S. in 2003, those have been the three pillars that our brand has always been about. We have had moments where we've lost our way, but as we look to the future, we want to make sure that we take that legacy into the future. What does change is how we speak about those three pillars and how we speak about our brand. That we continuously evolve with new generations. So as you look at our past advertisements, you will see that we've had advertisements where it's very much about, the guy getting the 20 girls. We know from our consumer research and from speaking to young guys that that's not how they think about relationships or masculinity anymore. That has evolved so much. The guys that I dated in 2003 are definitely not the guys today I think for the better But as we think about how guys have evolved in the way that they think about fragrance and connection is really different. And we will see that in the way that we communicate our brand. And same with fragrance. Again, in 20 years ago, the fragrance market for young guys was much more limited than it is today. Young guys today know so much more about fragrance. Sometimes I feel like they know more than I do as a woman who has worn fragrance since I was 13. They're so sophisticated and they know so much because they have access to so much information on places like TikTok. So all the information about fragrance notes and top notes and middle notes and how to layer fragrances is at their fingertips. So we have to make sure that we are evolving with those guys. And that's where something like the Fine Fragrance Collection stemmed out of, like I mentioned earlier, because we want to make sure that we maintain the heart of our brand around communicating our messaging in a humorous way because young guys love humor. They love things that are silly and fun and interesting. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we're delivering the benefits of the technology with the product that they're using and the fragrance in what they expect out of our product like Axe. Now, I believe Axe worked with social media agency, the Poynter Brothers on the FIFA campaign. Are they a regular partner and who else is on your list of agencies? And how do you think about that roster as you consider new campaigns? Yeah, so the Pointer Brothers are new. I don't believe we've ever worked with them before in the past. I've been on their brand for a year and a half, and we have not worked with them recently. We're really excited to partner with them. As we think about partners for FIFA in particular, we want to make sure that we're featuring young guys that do have that natural lean towards humor, soccer, and that align to the campaign of dressing up so they can smell their best when they're looked their worst. The Pointer Brothers felt like the perfect partner for that. And as we evaluate partners in the future, we think about, again, the three pillars, the fragrance, the humor, and attraction. So especially as we think about fragrance maxing and layering, we want to make sure that we're featuring influencers that speak to fragrance and those trends in a really strong way because we take nothing seriously except fragrance, as I said earlier. but humor is a huge part of our brand so you'll see a lot of the influencers that we work with and the celebrities that we've worked with in the past are really humor heavy so last year we worked with Pete Davidson he is a celebrity that is very well known to be super funny from his days on SNL to everything he does we feel like he was a real perfect partner for this brand so really thinking about humor fragrance and also just the brand fit for our young guys so people that are young guys can look up to from a connection standpoint, from a fragrance-maxim standpoint, and somebody that they can just relate to. Now, switching gears a little bit, let's widen the conversation. What brands, besides X, are you loving right now that are really inspiring you? Who's really killing it when it comes to the marketing that they're doing? So I'm generally just inspired by brands that have really strong legacy, but always remain relevant to their audience. So I think that's what we're trying to do on Axe, right? A brand that can evolve and remain in the cultural zeitgeist, and especially brands that have done a really good job in turning themselves around, right? Thinking like an Abercrombie & Fitch, for example, right? They've done a really nice job of, you know, they were super popular in the early 2000s. They hit a slump and they have made a comeback in a way that has gotten them back into that cultural zeitgeist. So those are the type of brands that I really admire and the brands that I think about a lot as I evolve Axe and bring this brand into the future. Right. Those brands that are really telling a story that have that narrative and also have that heritage kind of, especially for us with those brands that we grew up with. It's nice to see that they're still surviving, still around like that. And this question is a bit of a follow up from that. We have a lot of CMOs on this podcast. So if you could ask another CMO one question, what would it be? Oh, I love that question. I think I would ask them, what keeps you up at night about the future of your brand? I think what that does is it gives you a view into the big strategic questions that CMOs are always wrestling with. So if you say to somebody, what's keeping you up at night tonight? I could tell you it's, you know, supply chain. There's an issue here that I'm worried about this campaign or that performance or this cue underperforming. But if you think about what keeps you up at night for the future, right? What is your brand going to look like in five years and 10 years? Axe looked really different 10 years ago than it does today. And how do you maintain the heart of the brand while thinking about how to evolve it into the future and what comes next? Just not, not just the next year's campaign, but in the next five to 10 years. Well, we are out of time. Thank you so much for your participation. Great to have you. This was such a fun chat. Thank you so much for having me. That was Dolores Asselini, head of Axe US, and I'm Adrienne Pasquarelli, senior editor at AdAge. I'd like to thank our producer, Lauren Ciardio, and invite you to subscribe to the Marketers Brief podcast on your favorite player. We promise to keep it brief or at least short enough for your morning coffee. Thanks for tuning in. Marketers Brief listeners get $40 off an AdAge.com subscription. Sharpen your marketing edge and visit adage.com slash brief for your discount.
