Every young, single guy has a common enemy -- the Gamekiller. A Gamekiller is a person who interferes with your efforts to pick up women. In 2006, AXE's ad agency, BBH, developed a group of 14 Gamekiller characters who were on a mission to stop the AXE guy from getting the girl. Once AXE had this cast -- from the "Mother Hen" and the "Drama Queen" to the "One-Upper" and the "British Accent Guy," the brand knew it couldn't settle for plain old advertising. It turned to social networks to come up with the next big idea to intrigue its 18- to 24-year-old male audience.

AXE and Edelman created a MySpace Gamekillers group, which was hosted by the most popular girl on MySpace, Forbidden, and designed to encourage the AXE guy to embrace the Gamekillers concept and communicate the vernacular among his peers. The Edelman team, in the roles of the individual Gamekiller personas, interacted with MySpace members and spread AXE's messaging through topical forums and the characters' personal profiles. A "How Gamekiller Proof Are You?" quiz, introduced and marketed on the Gamekillers group and character profile pages, had audience members answering 15 questions that assessed their vulnerability to various Gamekillers. The quiz served as a viral mechanism for guys to let their friends know about the campaign, and ongoing challenges and giveaways kept members interested over the length of the program.

In less than three months, the Gamekillers MySpace group had more than 75,000 friends and 1.5 million page views, blowing away the goals of 15,000 friends and a few hundred thousand page views. The runaway success of the program prompted MySpace to say, "The Gamekillers program has been, by far, one our most powerful campaigns."

Credit Information
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Client: Unilever
Agency: Edelman
Budget: $90K Fee and $100K OOP
Date of Campaign: 2006