Huge peeping tom campaign in Puerto Rican discos and bars spread like wildfire.
Axe Body Spray used QR code marketing to spread its famous tagline “the ultimate weapon to get the girls” through a unique new strategy that had men in public washrooms “peeping” on women in the form of steamy videos.
When the quick response barcodes were scanned, they resolved to a video into the “ladies room”.
The video included scenes such as a woman leaning over a sink to wash her hands, where the camera “peep hole” is strategically angled for a cleavage view. However, when the video completed, the smartphone user was automatically redirected to the Axe Body Spray Facebook page. From there, the user could unlock videos that were increasingly steamy (for example, with two women changing, instead of one). All they needed to do was forward them to a certain number of friends to unlock the next level of video.
This QR code marketing campaign was wildly popular, with tremendous results.
Every day that the “peepholes” were available, an average of 23 percent of the target audience peeped by scanning the codes. Moreover, once the videos had been viewed, they ignited a social media wildfire. In fact, there was an increase of 53 percent with the brand’s social interaction overall throughout this campaign.
The brand’s Facebook page experienced a whopping 602 percent increase in feedback and views.
When all was said and done, everything lead to the same brand message, which was “Stop Lurking, Start Mating,” encouraging smartphone users to experience the effect of the product, which is said to make a man more appealing (irresistibly so) to women.
According to Axe, the entire QR code marketing campaign was based on the premise that deep inside all men are peeping toms. Though this was not a scientific study to help to prove this assumption, it did raise a number of brows when the popularity of the campaign was revealed. The overall success of this strategy is certain to lead to other similar unique uses of the barcodes and their associated technology over smartphones, particularly from this brand.