The Axe EffectAdvertising Agency: Mccann Erickson, Tel Aviv, Israel
Axe Instinct, a scent introduced in 2009, is being promoted with a 3D animated television commercial featuring a woman in leather. The new Instinct has combined the fragances of cardamom, amber, and atlas cedar to produce a spicy scent of leather.
The Swedish team, Againstallodds, worked with Blacklist to produce the new commercial, beginning with the inspiration of a piece of leather and a set of print advertisements. What they came up with was the concept of a woman whose sensual movements are revealed in the rippling curves of dark leather.
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The Power of Leather ad was developed at The Brooklyn Brothers, New York, and Againt All Odds, Stockholm, .
Filming was produced at Blacklist by executive producer Adina Sales,
Special effects and visual effects were produced at Milford Film, Stockholm, and Animation AB. Audio finishing was done at Audio Engine.
Music, “Moodswing”, was composed by Pedro Margues and Jean-Paul Wall and sung by Saphir Cristal Stoffels Fernandes Tavares. Sound was mixed by Carl Mandelbaum.
Q: This spot is a bit of a creative departure for you. Can you tell me about attracted you to the job?
againstallodds: To create this spot we were given a piece of leather and a print campaign and were told bring it to life. This spot is like nothing else on our reel and we were excited to create something we had not tried before. We really wanted to build on the dimensionality of the forms in the leather so that everything really moved naturally but had a enough definition and abstraction to draw people in. We were really attracted to the mixture of darkness and nakedness. It really seemed like something we wanted to see move.
Q: The texture of the leather is very detailed. Tell me a bit about how you created this look, what tools you used and if there were any challenges.
againstallodds: We began this project with a photo shoot with real actors and the leather laid out on a flat bed. We took moving references with naked models to show how the body moves and the leather reacts to different light setups. Then we edited everything together to make a rough timing. Animation and simulation followed and was a mixture of Maya nCloth and Houdini to make everything come together. The simulation was a great start and gave dimension to the leather but we really wanted to have control over some of the smaller details such as muscle and bone and they were getting lost in the simulation, so Milford lighting developed a special shader that took information from a more detailed mesh of the body and applied it to the leather simulated cloth.
Q: It’s a very sexy spot too. Can you tell me a bit about that?
againstallodds: That was something we really worked hard to keep. Doing sexy in 3d can be a tricky thing. Since everybody knows how humans move and are very sensitive to what’s not right even the most subtle movement can prove to be hard to recreate. We were very lucky to have a great photo model strip off and go through the timings and poses to block everything out so that we had great reference in the animation phase. On top of that we worked a lot with the shadows and lighting to reveal and cover sections of the body so that the silhouette and feminine curves really stood out and that the rest of the body became abstract.
Axe decided to create a band called The Cheesegirls, who would release two songs. The first song trashed ghetto guys (known as Kasi). The second video paid tribute to Kasi guys because they have been wearing Axe and are therefore irresistible. 
BRAND:Axe
The campaign was supported via posters in cinemas, in a widget with more information about the game, in key gaming magazines as well as in print. During the campaign, the best players were weekly rewarded with kits containing AXE products, game posters, t-shirt, cap and backpacks signed by the artists Will Murai and Guilherme Marconi. The fight for the grand prix lasted 8 weeks. The overall winner won an arcade machine with The Dark Temptation Saga game installed in it, which was delivered to his house, along with an Axe kit.
The Dark Temptation Saga Game was such a great hit in Brazil that ended up being translated and used in the launching strategy of AXE Dark Temptation in other countries: USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Pulling professionals challenged UK guys to test their pick-up power armed only with a bar of chocolate, released as virals. Markets shared ideas for sexy local celebrity ‘chocolate ambassadors’- tempting guys with the 'effect' chocolate had on them providing huge PR on chocolate as an aphrodisiac. Portugal tempted guys in confectionary aisles to seize the moment, buy chocolate, seduce girls, and win a visit to the Chocolate Pleasure Mansion.
