Nivea Men brings back bear hugs in quirky #BanBodyOdour campaign

Created by DigitasLBi, the campaign aims to create relevance and social currency for a rational product proposition of body odour prevention, without focusing the problem in a negative light

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | February 5, 2016

Click on the image to watch the TVC.

Nivea Men kicked off its new #BanBodyOdour campaign with a branded video that uses modern-day gestures to highlight the importance of eliminating body odour. The objective of the campaign, created by DigitasLBi, is to create relevance and social currency for a rational product proposition of body odour prevention, without focusing the problem in a negative light.

To achieve this, the Nivea lens of 'Care' asked a simple question: How has body odour impacted the way we care for each other? This led to an obvious behavioural insight: People maintain distance from others in cases that normally lead to physical closeness, be it a celebratory hug or meeting a loved one.

Prithviraj Banerjee

"It would have been simple to create a campaign around the base behavioural insight, but we decided to dig deeper and hunt down resultant behaviour. We realized that 'affection' is not avoided completely; it just becomes a little more remote. The creative juices flowed from this point, turning these remote forms of affection into inventions of necessity,” said Prithviraj Banerjee, Head of Agency, DigitasLBi, India.

“Body odour is a problem which is relevant to many but most avoid talking about it. The challenge for the brand was to create relevance around the problem without triggering the defence mechanism of 'not for me'. Thus came the idea of promoting 'bear hugs' as the best form of meeting friends/family, as body odour is the biggest dampener in this way of social greeting,” added Sunil Gadgil, Marketing Director, Nivea India.

The campaign thought emerged from the prevalence of modern-day gestures such as the fist-bump and high five, among others, which are used to show affection from a distance. In a quirky twist, these gestures were positioned as inventions that people came up with in order to avoid hugging those with bad body odour.

Mark Mcdonald

“The task was two-fold: first, to create awareness about the problem because people with body odour often aren't aware of it; second, to put across our message in a fun, contemporary way that resonates with life today. So we asked ourselves, 'What if modern-day gestures were in fact the result of body odour?' If so, wasn't it time to #BanBodyOdour and bring back the good old hugs, thanks to Nivea Men Body Deodorizer?” commented Mark Mcdonald, Senior Creative Director, DigitasLBi, India.

The video, 'Sands of Time', represents this thought over different eras in time, making it a historical yet relatable video. With over 2 million views in a week across different platforms, the video gained much popularity among the digital audience, driving conversations around the campaign hashtag #BanBodyOdour.

The campaign also aligned itself with 'Hugging Day' which was strategically used to amplify the digital presence of the campaign. The occasion was celebrated on January 21 with a contest, which encouraged users to share their favourite hugs with their friends on Twitter.

The video will also be followed by more quirky content in the form of interesting social media posters and contests. While the posters will highlight the fictional stories behind the invention of these gestures, the contest will encourage users to come up with their own #BanBodyOdour slogans, further driving the campaign thought home.

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/

Credits:

Client: Nivea

Creative agency: DigitasLBi, Mumbai

Chief Creative Officer: Partho Sinha

Senior Creative Director: Mark McDonald

Creative Leads: Roshni Dadabhoy, Prajakta Giri

Senior Copywriter: Nameet Shetty

Associate Designer: Shruti Sahu

Head of Key Accounts: Adityan Kayalakar

Group Account Director: Aakanksha Patel

Sr. Client Servicing Associate: Komal Thapa

Account Manager: Tanya Khanna

Social Media Manager: Anishka Alvares

Production house: Hereafter Studios

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