Men’s grooming case study

US-based men’s grooming brand USTRAA developed streamlined, Instagram-worthy creative for its carousel
ads to promote its shaving line to its target audience. This case study looks at how the brand made smart use
of targeting with its hip, sexy image to boost sales 14 times over. 

Case study summary

• New grooming brand wanted to reach young, mobile savvy men

• Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network campaign aimed to reach as many people from its target
audience as possible

• Men responded to the creative, which was reflected in the 14 increase in sales of USTRAA.

The challenge 

The brand wanted to drive sales of USTRAA; a recently launched range of grooming products aimed at men. It
wanted to reach a certain type of man: young, mobile savvy and interested in good design. 

Its specific goals were to increase revenue by 10X and drive 2X more website traffic. 

The solution

The brand ran an optimised campaign across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network to reach as
many people from its target audience as possible. 

It used carousel ads to display its products visually and allow people to scroll through a variety of creatives.
Understanding the way its audience thoughtfully curates its Instagram feed to be visually inspired, the brand
invested in creative that matched the Instagram aesthetic. 
The creative featured minimalist product photography for on-trend items from its USTRAA line, such as beard
tonic. 

The copy had a confident tone, announcing that “well groomed is the new sexy” and telling men that USTRAA
products haven’t been tested on animals, “just rascals.”

One visual suggestively placed a range of grooming products next to a jewellery box and a “do not disturb”
sign, along with the copy “when your beard is your pickup line.” It applied a variety of Instagram filters to give
the ads a retro feel. Collectively, the suite of photos had a modern and sexy feel. 

As well as targeting 18 to 35-year-old men who use certain devices and operating systems, Happily Unmarried
used Website Custom Audiences to retarget website visitors and lookalike audiences to find people similar to
existing customers. 

The results 

Its cross-platform, six-month campaign (which ran from August 2015 —February 2016) reached the right
people, tripling website traffic and driving a 12X increase in monthly revenue. 

Men responded to the creative, which was reflected in the 14 increase in sales of USTRAA.

Manish Anand, Head - Marketing (eCommerce) at USTRAA, said: “Instagram helped us reach our audience:
young men who are looking to discover new brands on mobile who care passionately about good design.
Visually, Instagram fit the aesthetic of our USTRAA line perfectly, so it made sense to leverage it for our
launch.”

CASE STUDY: How Unilever made inroads

into the male grooming space in Malaysia
The Malaysian male grooming segment has been growing by 20
per cent year-on-year, but Unilever’s efforts to ride on this trend
with its brands—including Axe, Vaseline, Rexona and Clear—
had not been effective. When its tried-and-tested
communications approach failed, Unilever, together with
Microsoft and Catcha Digital, launched a branded content site
exclusively for men.
Unilever's branded content site MSN Locker Room

Aim
Unilever needed a solution that would allow it to learn about the typical Malaysian
man, while tailoring content and advertising messaging to suit them. It needed an
original insight into Malaysian men around which an entire framework could be
built.

Objective
With a focus on 18- to 34-year olds, Unilever looked to improve brand awareness
and drive engagement for five of its brands aimed at males: Axe Enterprise, Axe
Island, Rexona, Clear and Vaseline Men. Unilever’s goal was emphasise the core
brand values of these products and to initiate purchase intent.

Execution
Unilever, together with Catcha Digital, Microsoft Advertising and Mindshare
Malaysia, launched the MSN Locker Room—a first-of-a-kind branded ‘male
hangout space’. It provides interesting, shareable content that is relevant to the
target audience. Content ‘verticals’ were created using common interests: ‘Got
Game’ for Axe, ‘Adrenaline’ for Rexona/Clear and ‘Style’ for Vaseline Men. The
content in the locker room is sponsored by a single brand, which is given full
exposure to the audience via prominent rich-media advertisements and through
tailored editorial content. Exclusive men’s video content was also created to drive
engagement across the MSN Locker Room, and ‘share’ and ‘like’ buttons were
provided on all content pieces. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram were used extensively to drive earned media for Unilever.

Results
MSN Locker Room engaged with 800,000 Malaysian men in just eight months,
surpassing unique user targets by 458 per cent. It reached more than 1 million
Malaysian men by its 10th month of operation and continues to grow steadily.
MSN Locker Room achieved 2.25 million pageviews, surpassing page view targets
by 253 per cent. Time spent and bounce rate KPI’s for the site were surpassed.
Bounce rate was 53 per cent versus a KPI of 55 per cent and time spent was 4:33
per user, versus a KPI of four minutes. It saw more than 1,200 likes and 1,500
shares across the MSN Locker Room content. This was seven times higher than
leading Malaysian male online magazine portals. Customised research showed
double-digit growth in brand consideration, awareness and attribute recall across
all brands (Axe, Rexona Men, Vaseline Men, Clear Men). The success of
campaign has led Unilever Malaysia to re-sign with MSN Malaysia for a further 12
months in 2013.

Case x-men: https://marketingai.admicro.vn/chien-dich-dac-vu-x/