Philips, a leading brand in men’s grooming, approached us with the question of how to promote the Philips OneBlade. A revolutionary grooming device that has the capabilities of a trimmer with the agility of a razor.
Well, how do you promote a one-of-a-kind product? Especially when copycat competitors show up saying it’s not so one-of-a-kind anymore? We told one-of-a-kind stories, like only the OneBlade could. By leveraging the seemingly too-good-to-be-true and almost fictional reviews that real users wrote, OneBlade shined in its identity of being one-of-a-kind. Elevating real reviews reintroduced the OneBlade to our audience as a novel way of shaving worth reconsidering. Ultimately OneBlade cut its way through the apathy of men sticking to their age-old shaving routine.
We were the first…
Rewind to 2016. It’s a big year full of crazy world-changing events. Leicester City won the Premier League in their first season after promoting back into it. Bowie left us (and we still miss him). And Philips launched the OneBlade, which shook up the world.. of shaving. OneBlade has the capabilities of an electric shaver, in the portability and low price of a manual razor. Something never seen before. With the ability to shave, trim, and edge, the OneBlade was (and still is) one of a kind, creating a category of its own.
… but it’s no excuse to become complacent
Philips’ competitors enjoyed a safely cleared and mapped-out path to this new category. As with every pioneer, OneBlade faced the challenge of competition catching up. How could we cut through the clutter of competitor-imitations, and show our audience that OneBlade is not only the first of its kind, but truly one of a kind?
Cutting through apathy
To be able to talk to our audience (men with age-old shaving routines) in a relevant way, we needed to understand them. In the first phases of research, we quickly discovered that most guys have a way of shaving, that’s good enough, and they’re content with. But what these guys don’t know is that their ancient shaving routine just can’t compete with the OneBlade. The reality is they’re suffering from apathy.
If you know you know…and share it
On the other hand, the ones who do own a OneBlade know how good it is. The OneBlade has an outrageously good track record with its buyers, buyers who fanatically shared their delight. With OneBlade’s unique position as a pioneer and essentially creating a category for itself, it handed us something to work with that competitors didn’t have: reviews, and loads of them. Unlike anything we had seen before, OneBlade reviews tapped into social concepts, posted confronting questions, and contained topnotch humour. Normally nobody talks about a shaver or groomer like this, or in reviews for that matter. The reviews showed us that OneBlade truly is unique and inspired the creative idea: dramatising real reviews with cinematic cues and elements and playing on the intersection between fiction and reality, resulting in one-of-a-kind stories.
The role of reviews
Leaning into this track record of reviews did wonderful things strategically. A mix of amazing, unbelievable, hilarious, and genuine consumer reviews worked in the campaign in three important ways:
1. To build consumer trust in the One Blade range of products.
Tapping into the 50.000+ positive reviews on Amazon allowed us to create social proof, as real reviews add credibility to the claims made in them. Through the reviews, we also leveraged the sincere love people have for OneBlade, and created relevance through relatable situations.
2. To uniquely cover the OneBlade’s Reasons-To-Buy (RTB).
The reviews created honest ways-in to highlight OneBlade’s reasons-to-buy. As real users positively reviewed the versatility, a way-in to advocating OneBlade’s shave, trim, and edge functionalities presented itself organically. Topnotch comedic reviews on how the OneBlade was good for ‘the kiwis’ and ‘crown jewels’ allowed us to highlight the RTB as being good for hard-to-reach-areas.
3. To allow for creative storytelling that stands out and gets noticed.
By straddling the line between fiction and reality, a quirky yet relatable tone of voice organically fitted the campaign. Dramatising real reviews additionally bridges the leap between relatable situations to cinematic storytelling.
Unscripted Reviews
Philips OneBlade is so unbelievably good and the way people review it is equally unbelievable. It seems like something straight out of a movie. You could not script these things. But the truth is: the reviews are all real. So we explore that tension between reality and fiction, by dramatising with cinematic cues and elements while integrating the legitimate reviews into the scene.
For the five hero films, each with a distinctive cinematic setting, the starting point always was a real review. The opening lettering greeted you with the name of the review while stating: “based on a real review”. A dramatised version of the real review is then portrayed with a distinctive tone-of-voice and art direction. Staying true to the concept of film, a fitting trailer-like outro signed off every film.
Oscar-worthy reviews
True to the creative concept each film holds a crowd-pulling title. ‘The Dilemma’ turned the honest question ‘to shave or not to shave’ into one that’s Hamlet-recital-worthy.
The ‘So Gentle’ film elevated a steamy, testosterone filled locker room into a group choreography dance straight out of a teenage musical movie.
‘The Jewels’ depicted an ordinary man turned French monarch shaving his ‘crown jewels’. And yes, the original review really did say: “After years of struggling to keep the crown jewels in ceremonial order the answer to our dreams has arrived”.
‘Minty Fresh’ is the visualisation of a reviewer noting: “my clockweights are smooth as mint imperials”. ‘Shave All Things’ shows us how you can lose yourself in the process of ‘lending’ your partner’s OneBlade, and end up shaving things that have never been shaven before. You just can’t stop.
One of a kind results
The campaign resulted in:
- Increased OneBlade brand strength and consideration for OneBlade across all markets
- Achieved 36% above the brand recognition target in the hero UK market, with similar figures across all markets
- Ad recall was double of the previous campaign
- Increased sales, indicated by a rise in Philips’ share of search across markets, which correlates significantly with actual market share according to research from the IPA and Les Binet
- A review-ception; people even started reviewing our review-based campaign.
By leaning into our history and reclaiming leadership of the category, we elevated OneBlade from a functional innovation to an emotional leader – and drove the business forward at the same time.
Questions?
Strategy Director
Rasmus Keller Jansen
Discover more
