Account Planning Group (UK)

Silver, Best use of research, Creative Strategy Awards, 2009

www.apg.org.uk

Lynx — Get In There: How the Lynx Effect Evolved To Stay Fit
Bartle Bogle Hegarty

SUMMARY

Lynx is dependent on teenage guys. They account for a big proportion of the brand's sales.

In the past, Lynx appealed to them with a magical promise of Mating Game success.

The rise of social networks and near total teenage penetration of mobile phones changed the rules of the Game, making it hyper-
connected, always on and played across real and virtual contexts.

As digital media changed consumer behaviour, the obvious solution was to develop a digital strategy for the brand.

This is the story of how a new type of planning team – Engagement and Account Planners working together – identified that it wasn't a
digital strategy Lynx needed, but strategy for a digital world.

Planning evolved the brand promise from the traditional 'emotional selling proposition' to an 'interactive selling proposition'.

Lynx's promise of enhanced confidence to seduce girls was re-expressed as an interactive mating game toolkit, featuring mobile apps and
other content that could help guys break the ice with girls.

The idea was wrapped in an engagement theme and delivered across a content network that clustered in the digital places where guys
were already hanging out to strengthen Lynx's role as a guy's best first move in the mating game.

When a new media paradigm changed the Game for young guys, Lynx didn't need a digital strategy – it needed strategy for a digital world.

This is the story of how Planning helped the Lynx Effect evolve in the digital age.

KEEPING TEENS SWEET

Half of all guys start using Lynx in their early teens (fig.1). They tend to use the brand loyally 1 for a few years, before switching over to
competitor brands in their late teens / early twenties.
Figure 1: Penetration of Lynx deodorants for the year ending December 2007. Graph shows higher penetration of Lynx
amongst younger age groups versus relatively flat category penetration

This teenage loyalty is massively valuable to Lynx, contributing over 20% of the brand's deodorant and bodyspray sales. On the flip side,
losing teenage loyalty could be seriously damaging to the brand's health.

For Lynx, then, it's important to keep teens sweet.

MAGIC AND THE MEGAPHONE

In the late 90s and early 00s, Lynx cornered the youth grooming market with a magical Mating Game promise. The brand's offer of
enhanced confidence to seduce resonated strongly with adolescent guys experiencing their first, awkward encounters with girls.

At a product level, this promise was supported by clear sensorial reasons to believe (or suspend disbelief). With fragrances created by top
perfumers, Lynx products made you smell, look and feel great.

Magical promise and sensorial support were packaged as The Lynx Effect and broadcast to young guys in a series of famous advertising
campaigns.

DIGITAL REVOLUTION, VIRTUAL PROBLEM

Fast forward to 2007. You didn't need to be a Planner to see that young guys' media behaviour had changed radically – or that new media
behaviours were transforming every part of their lifestyle.

The web had replaced broadcast TV as their favourite source of entertainment2. An array of digital communication tools kept them
connected to their mates and to girls anytime, anywhere.

What's more, armed with these tools guys were becoming confident virtual seducers. They could flirt all night on MSN without the
awkwardness of face-to-face meeting; texts could be carefully crafted to impress; Facebook offered a preview of potential talent and a
chance to project an idealised image.

This presented a problem for Lynx. In these new virtual contexts the brand's magical promise of Mating Game success lacked relevance.
Guys didn't really need enhanced confidence or seduction powers online. Equally impotent was the product's sensorial support. In
cyberspace, nobody can smell your fragrance.

Young guys were spending more time seducing virtually, and virtual seduction was the enemy of the Lynx Effect.

BUT THAT WASN'T THE WHOLE STORY

To understand the problem, we spoke to young guys about their experience of the modern Mating Game.

They confirmed that virtual seduction was fun and relatively easy – they had more time to plan their moves, more chances to experiment
and more control over their presentation. But they obviously still felt a desire for physical intimacy and real world encounters with girls.
They were more desperate than ever to play the Game for real.

Crucially, guys found the shift from virtual to real seduction massively daunting. The fact that they could carefully manage their online
encounters only made it tougher to approach girls in the real world, where they had far less control.

Young guys still needed the shot of confidence that Lynx always promised – but we would have to re-express it for a new Mating Game that
was always on, playing out continuously across on and offline.

ENGAGING DIGITAL NATIVES

The guys we spoke to were true digital natives – born at the dawn of the Web, raised on 1s and 0s.

Figure 2: example digital biog. of a guy at the upper end of the Lynx target audience

Digital wasn't a new media channel to them, it was their joined-up media experience. Digital technology wasn't limited to virtual contexts, it
was woven into the fabric of their lives.

They used Bebo to organise nights out with friends. They sent flirty texts to the girls who might be there. They used cameraphones to
capture and publish the action online. They followed-up with girls from last night on Facebook.

Trying to engage these young guys with a separate 'digital'strand of communication would have been counter to their lifestyle.

Lynx didn't need a digital strategy to stay relevant to young guys, it needed strategy fit for their digital world. Strategy as connected as our
consumer; strategy that was always-on; strategy that crossed the on / offline divide.

A PLANNING MODEL FIT FOR PURPOSE

To deliver strategy for a digital world, BBH needed Planning for a digital world.

In the beta-test of a model that would later be adopted across the agency's account teams, an Account Planner who understood the brand
and the business context was paired with an Engagement Planner who understood the target's joined-up, digital-world behaviour.

This upstream injection of insight into the consumer / media relationship produced a different kind of strategic product better suited to the
task.

Instead of a traditional messaging strategy reduced down to a single-minded brand proposition, the Planning Team generated an
engagement strategy expressed as a set of guiding principles for brand behaviour.

FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT

1. Engage guys where they already hang-out online. Young guys attention is scarce (fig.3). We need to swarm all over the
places they visit regularly.
 Figure 3: Share of website visits for adult (pornographic) sites and social networks. Graph shows decrease in adult
site visits as social network visits increase in late 2006

2. Re-express the Lynx promise for a digital world. Digitally-empowered Guys want to engage with brands on their terms. Our
emotional selling proposition needs to become an interactive selling proposition.

3. Give guys the confidence to get offline and play the Game for real. Offer them rich interactive experiences of Game play.
Provide them with assets and tools to sharpen their Game.

4. Create laughter and conversation as well as great fragrance. Virtual seduction has changed the rules of the Game, making
it longer and more playful. Guys need social effects not sensorial magic.

5. Use mobile as a transmedia channel. Mobile phones are a precious3 link between young guys' online and offline lives. 94%
have one, 20% have a multimedia smartphone (source: Roper).

UNBRIEFING CREATIVE

From experience we knew that a traditional creative briefing with a digital Creative Team would probably get a traditional digital response;
i.e. banners and a website, maybe some digital outdoor.

So instead, we mashed together a hybrid Creative Team (with advertising, online and events experience), a Mobile Technologist and a
Content Producer in several collaborative sessions with the Planners.

Our active engagement principles provided the only input to these sessions. With a right casting of skills in the room and these five guiding
principles in mind we left the traditional creative process behind, getting quickly to a shared vision of digital-world creative.

IDEA FOR A DIGITAL WORLD

Our vision was simple: Lynx would extend its role to become a trusted provider of Mating Game services, giving young guys everything
they need to get offline and play the Game for real.

The magical Mating Game promise would be re-expressed as a playful Mating Game toolkit (fig.4). The product range wouldn't just lend
support, it would be the first and sharpest tool in the box.
Figure 4: image illustrating the toolkit idea from an early client presentation

The Lynx Effect would evolve to become an interactive property with digital-world relevance.

BRINGING THE TOOLKIT TO LIFE

Icebreakers

The toolkit was expressed as a collection of tips, apps and demonstration videos designed to help guys break the ice with girls.

These icebreakers were accessed online for use offline, where they actively enhanced guys confidence and seduction powers, turning
everyday girl encounters into opportunities to play the Game.

Two mobile apps, Lynx FX and Fit Girl Finder, were the sharpest expression of the toolkit and the most innovative creative executions.
Unlike existing branded mobile apps that were designed for personal entertainment, our Lynx apps were born out of an engagement
strategy focused on social effects: they made her look and laugh and respond.

If you want to experience mobile Mating Game play for yourself, try interacting with Lynx directly from this paper by following the simple
instruction below:

Text LYNX to 60030. You Will Receive A Link To The Lynx WAP Site Where You Can Download The Lynx FX Tool.

Content Network

In line with our engagement principles, the icebreaker content was located in places where young guys already hung-out like Bebo,
Youtube and seeding platforms recommended by specialist distribution partners4. We were not pushing a message to guys. And we didn't
just build something, hoping they would come.

We designed a bespoke Lynx presence for each platform and connected them up to create a network of interlinked content that guys could
easily travel across, extending their brand experience (fig.5).
Figure 5: diagram showing the Get In There content network model with interconnected platforms

The final node in the network was a hub site hosted at lynxeffect.com. This functioned as a destination for search traffic and a portal on the
wider network.

Engagement theme

Instead of signing-off our icebreaker content with a tagline, we wrapped it with an engagement theme that would re-express the brand
promise in a more active way.

The theme was Get In There. A call-to-action. A battle cry. A mantra for players everywhere.

By inspiring guys to download the apps and play the Game for real, this theme was not only expressive of the joined-up strategy, but an
active part of delivering it.

GET IN THERE RESULTS

Get in there proved to be a hit with consumers, clients and the creative industry.

The Get In There mobile apps have received over 355k downloads since launch, with around half of those coming from viral distribution
(where one guy sends the tool to another)5.

Of the direct downloads, 77% came from seeding platforms like Getjar.com, where they were hosted for free without promotion. Guys were
actively searching out the brand on these platforms, and pulling down our apps based on a brief description of their function. A clear vote
of confidence for the engagement strategy.

To the app downloads add 1.5m views for the hidden camera videos across the Get In There network6. That makes a total of 1.9m active
content engagements, or an estimated 5.7m minutes of rich brand experience7.

Millward Brown tracking (fig.6) showed a correlation between the launch period of Get In There and several key brand measures, evidence
that the re-expressed Lynx Effect was keeping teens sweet.
Figure 6: Change in 10 key brand perception measures from 2007 to 2008. Graph shows positive shift in all measures over
the full 2008 period when Get In There was launched and continuously optimised

In addition to high levels of consumer engagement, Get In There attracted attention from Axe marketers across Europe. After a successful
UK launch in 2008, 10 countries signed-up to localise Get In There in 2009.

AWARDS FOR GET IN THERE

● Cannes Lions – Media Silver Lion: Best Use of Mobile

● D&AD – Yellow Pencil: Best Use of Mobile

● Campaign Big Awards – Fashion and Beauty: Digital (mobile)

● Gramia – Online Award

● Mobile Marketing Awards – Best Use of Mobile in Brand Building, Best Use of Content in Mobile Marketing

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

One of key tenets of strategy for a digital world is a do-and-learn, always in beta approach.

When the Get In There campaign launched, the role for Planning was only just beginning. Over the following weeks and months a cycle of
network-wide analysis and optimisation produced fresh content, additional distribution channels, and several new versions of the hub site.

More broadly, the active engagement principles defined for Get In There helped to shape the brand's behaviour in other projects. A focus
on the joined-up consumer experience and the social effects of marketing activity changed the way we approached every Lynx brief.

Planning processes, too, were adopted across Lynx and the wider agency. The model of a Planning Team collaborating with the right
creative and technical specialists for the job is now standard practice at BBH.

WHAT WE LEARNED

Sometimes youth marketing stories aren't that useful if you're selling bog roll to busy mums. But we'd like to think the key Planning
lessons from Get In There apply to many brands and audiences:

● You don't need a problem to think and act commercially. Every winning formula has a variable. Front-foot Planning can help
successful brands evolve to stay fit.

● Digital isn't a new channel. It's a paradigm-shift in consumer behaviour with big implications for brand strategy. Stop tweaking
the media plan, start changing the promise – make it more interactive.

● Planning for a digital world is different. Planning Teams beat Planning Gurus. Collaboration is king. Message-centric strategy
won't inspire joined-up digital behaviour
NOTES

1. Average share of repertoire amongst Lynx users is 86 % (source: Unilever)

2. 2007 was the first year that 16–24 year men spent more time online than watching broadcast TV (source: EIAA Mediascope).

3. Mobile is the media activity that 16–19s would miss most (source: Ofcom Communications Report, 2007)

4. Specialist distribution partners were Golden Gekko (mobile seeding) and Go Viral (video seeding)

5. All mobile download statistics provided by Golden Gekko

6. Video view statistics provided by Go Viral and Youtube

7. Based on assumption of 3 mins engagement per piece of content – average video engagement is less than 3 mins, average mobile
app engagement is significantly more

CREATIVE BRIEF

There was no creative brief or briefing for Get In There. Instead, the Planning Team took part in a series of collaborative sessions with the
right cast of Creatives, Technologists and Producers. The five active engagement principles (in the main body of this paper) were the only
input to these sessions.

APPENDIX

Get In There Youtube channel

Get In There mobile apps on the Getjar mobile seeding platform

Get In There 1.0 site at launch

Get In There 1.1 site optimised for content discovery and campaign integration
Get In There 2.0 site with social media features and flexible back-end

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