Make Love, Not War

In a world filled with fear and war, Axe is delivering a message of peace. This video was prepared by Axe for the Super Bowl and you can understand from the first image that it is not the kind of spot the Unilever brand has always done. Don't wait for running girls. Don't wait for the awesome guy spraying himself on a tropical beach.

A somber piano track bolsters scenes of war and dictatorship, showing clear allusions to North Korea's regime, the war in Vietnam or the Middle-East crisis. But after few seconds everything changes. The soldier in the helicopter is not going to bomb the Vietnamese village, but he's meeting his girl. The leader that will remember you Kim Joung-un is not watching a military parade, but he's preparing a surprise for his love, and he will smile, when she'll take his hand.

The spot launched Axe Peace, a new product that will be launched on the market soon. The campaign doesn't include only the video. Axe invites couples to share their photos made while kissing on Twitter, using #kissforpeace. Some billboards have been prepared too and you can see them below:

Using the war/peace theme can be troublesome and some customers may turn up their noses, thinking that Axe is using this kind of cliques just to increase the sale for the new product. So the BBH team, who designed this campaign, has gone further, and sought a partnership with peaceoneday to show that this campaign comes from a genuine feeling. The charitable organization quoted on the official webpage of Axe Peace, on Facebook and billboards and Axe has even donated $250,000 to the organization.

Axe has habituated us with really different spots, often considerate as sexist, but we can see a totally different idea at the bases of this "Make Love, Not War" spot that finds its roots in that romantic ideal that was so popular during the 60s.

Maybe this be a shift in Axe's orientation?