It’s Axe effect on Yahoo! India

The content on the homepage of Yahoo! India was hijacked by Axe Dark Temptation for a 24 hour online campaign

Yesterday, the homepage of Yahoo! India looked very unusual. That’s because of a 24 hour online campaign by Axe Dark Temptation, a chocolate fragrance deodorant brand.

The campaign was aimed to engage the target audience of Axe and inform them that November 2008 is being celebrated as Chocolate Month in India. As part of this activity, members of the audience could send free chocolate packages to girls, if the latter were ready to accept them.

A dark man was placed at the centre of the Yahoo.in homepage. A fixed banner ad on the right side displayed an Axe Dark Temptation deodorant bottle. In the next few seconds, the bottle flew towards the dark man and sprayed deodorant. As a result, the man got converted into a chocolate man and walked towards the banner ad. Once inside the banner ad, the consumer engagement began, as visitors were given the option to click on the ad in order to get a surprise.

When a visitor clicked on the banner ad, the headlines and content on the homepage changed into chocolate related stories, even presented in chocolate colour. Images got replaced with the images of girls. The chocolate man started walking towards the Yahoo! India logo, which got morphed into a brown coloured logo, with chocolate dripping from it. Soon after, the girls in the images also started walking, one by one, towards the chocolate man. The banner ad and all the image boxes from where the girls moved out, displayed the message: To send a box of chocolates, log on to Axeffect.com.

A visitor could close the campaign or reach the site, Axeffect.com, developed by WebChutney, an interactive agency. On the site, he could fill a form and submit the name of the girl to whom he wanted to send the chocolates.

Speaking to afaqs!, Pearl Uppal, director, sales, Yahoo! India, reveals, "The online campaign has the capacity to reach about 3.5 million unique users, who visit the Yahoo! India homepage every day."

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), which owns the Axe brand, carried out the banner ad campaign for 24 hours across other portals as well, such as Zapak.com, Indiatimes.com and MSN.co.in. However, it was only at the Yahoo! India site that the content and images of the homepage were morphed with the chocolate effect of Axe Dark Temptation.

Priya Nair, category head, deodorants, HUL, says, "It is just the beginning of our online campaign for Chocolate Month, which is aimed at boys to make them realise the power of chocolate."

The campaign will continue for a month. There are plans to carry out more innovative advertising for the chocolate gifting activity. Uppal points out, "The campaign will be carried out for the next 30-40 days in innovative ways. Other Yahoo! Properties, such as Yahoo! Mail and Movies, will be used."

The digital team at Mindshare Fulcrum has conceptualised and developed this campaign.