Buzz Marketing That Works (Litterally)

May 2006, Philips launches Bodygroom, a shaving device designed for hair below the neck. Indeed, the company had done some research and found out that more than 50% of the guys they interviewed between the ages of 20 to 50 where doing some kind of body-hair maintenance, but were very unsatisfied with their options. Waxing is torture and razor blades and scissors are way too risky down there.

So they came up with a new category of trimmers that they had to promote. Since it’s not a topic that men are willing to talk about openly, they decided to have fun with it thanks to a video website: ShaveEverywhere. A young man in his thick bathrobe details the benefits of the Bodygroom to get rid of hair on the back, armpits and, well, more personal part that are bleeped out and poetically represented by kiwis and peaches.

The site was advertised on CollegeHumor.com and similar relevant sites, Howard Stern featured it on his show, and there it was, the buzz had started and a new category of products was created. One year later, ±250,000 body-hair trimmers have been sold in the US, Philips now facing the competition of few other brands that took advantage of the word-to-mouth for this once inexistent market segment.

And today, 60% of the Bodygroom buyers said that they learned about the product on the ShaveEverywhere website.
What was the main weakness of this trimmer device (the taboo thing) became its strength online thanks to precise audience targeting, cheaper production costs and permissiveness of the media.
Something that would have been much harder to realize on TV for example.

Don’t forget to check out the mockumentary launched this year on that same website: “How Bodygroom saved the beach”, hilarious and so neatly realized.

via NYTimes Select, requires registration.