Recently,
Prince Harry once again hit headlines as naked photos of him on holidays in Las
Vegas were published online. The photos were published on website TMZ on the 22nd
of August 2012.
St
James’ Palace initially reacted by contacting the UK press through the Press
Complaints Commission (PCC) in order to remind UK editors that the “pictures
were private and any possible publication of the photos would intrude upon the
Prince’s reasonable right to privacy” (campaignlive.co.uk). However, it would
seem that the sheer scale of the internet coverage the pictures were receiving
on the internet was just too much for The Sun, which decided to publish the
pictures on the 24th of August with the headline “Heir it is! The
pic of Harry you’ve already seen on the Internet”.
In
that issue of the Sun, Unilever decided to connect Lynx to the royal scandal by
publishing two one-off tactical press ads which joke that it may have been
caused by the ‘Lynx Effect’. The ads were created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty London
and use the same typeface as the governments “keep calm and carry on”
posters. The ad itself says “Sorry Harry if it had anything to do with us” and
shows a picture of Lynx’s newest scent Lynx Attract. The two adverts are very
much in keeping with Lynx’s long-running ‘Lynx Effect’ marketing strategy which
markets the Lynx product as being irresistible to women.
It
would seem that Lynx managed to ‘newsjack’ this story quite effectively. ‘Newsjacking’
is a relatively new concept, which means injecting your ideas into breaking news
stories in order to try to generate media coverage at a very low cost. Successful
attempts are rare but it would seem that Lynx managed it here.
Lynx’s
social networking publicity more than doubled after the ad ran, with mentions
of the brand on Twitter alone going from 1500 to 3300 daily mentions. Lynx reached
1.5% of Twitter with key words appearing with Lynx including “advert”, “today”,
“Sun”, “great”, “Prince Harry”, “Vegas” and “love”. By Monday, Lynx had reached
a score of 3% on Twitter with the word “clever” being referenced alongside
Lynx. Furthermore, by Tuesday, Lynx’s score had increased again, now reaching
5% of Twitter newsfeeds, of which 59% belonged to those between the ages of 18
and 34 (you.gov.co.uk). Interestingly,
the Lynx Attract product is the first Lynx product to be released which
includes a version for women and during the three-day period, between 48 and 52%
of those hearing about Lynx on Twitter were women.
This is not the first time that Lynx and BBH have
used Prince Harry in an advertising campaign. In November 2010, just two days
after the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton, Lynx ran a seven day
advertising campaign with the tagline ‘Keep up Harry’ at an estimated cost of
£35,749. However, although a figure has not yet been released for the cost of
the ‘Sorry Harry’ campaign, it is likely to have been much lower as the ad ran
for one day only.
Personally, I really like this ad campaign by Lynx.
The humorous taglines fit well with the Lynx brand image and the overall marketing
strategy for the product. News jacking is a really good way for the brand to
gain extra publicity at a low cost. If Lynx continues to be innovative and stay
ahead of the competition in this way then it will continue to differentiate
itself from the rest. My feelings regarding Prince Harry’s behaviour on the
other hand are a blog for another day...!
Audrey Aspell – Marketing Advisor
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