Wilkinson Sword campaigning shifts from functional to fun

The campaign, led by JWT, features a website – hairoffmystuff.com – with three-minute videos showing the plight of three men who have unwanted hair.

Instructional videos demonstrate how to remove hair from ’the Front’, ’the Back’, and ’the Nuts and Bolts’ – the latter promising that “your tools will be easier to find and handle.”

“This effort was designed to help men understand that body grooming is something that most guys could benefit from,” says Jeffrey Chapman, global director of brand communications for Schick Wilkinson Sword.

“We set out to use a light sense of humour and a range of charming stories to disarm any awkwardness that the subject might cause for guys who haven’t tried it yet.”

This activity is part of a £4m advertising campaign launched by Wilkinson Sword last month to capitalise on a recent rise in market share. The overall theme is to develop the concept of transformation, showing how the unpleasant can be trans-formed into the pleasant. The tongue-in-cheek adverts, developed by JWT, focus on the Quattro for Women Bikini and Quattro Titanium Precision.

The campaign themes mark a rise in ’tongue in cheek’ marketing for razor brands, with King of Shaves also having shifted its advertising from ’functional to fun’.

King of Shaves, the challenger-shaving brand, recently relaunched its King of Shaves Women’s range under the ’Queen of…’ brand name. A spokesman says the change was on the back of a market that has become “very functional”. “[This} is about putting the fun and excitement of a social occasion at the heart of product usage,” he adds.

With annual sales of £54.4m, Wilkinson Sword accounts for 18.2% of the £229.5m shaving market, up £6m on a year ago, according to Nielsen figures.

Market leading shaving brand Gillette, which is owned by Procter & Gamble, accounts for £211.7m (73.6%) of the market, down £11.2m from a year ago.