Bucharest, 28th of May, 2008

Lowe and Rexona save the reputation of Romanian women

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Don’t Let the Body Odor Brand You is the most recent campaign signed by Lowe & Partners and Lowe Public Relations agencies for Rexona.

This campaign is one of the most complex ones ever made by Rexona and it was created by the two agencies for a pitch they won in February, this year.

“Beyond the brand’s communication objectives, the campaign is one of the most courageous and highly developed educational actions ever held in Romania for the population. Rexona assumed an extremely ambitious mission: we want to convince the Romanian women to use deodorant every morning!” says Ramona Bloju, Brand Building Manager Deo, Unilever South Central Europe.
The project is based on a number of market studies for Rexona, at a local and international level, that revealed devastating statistics concerning the care for hygiene and deodorant use in Romania.

“The most shocking result of these studies was the one according to which Romanian women use in average one deodorant per year (English women use about 5 deodorants). It took us a couple of days to become aware of the gravity of the situation, especially because Romanian women are a symbol of beauty all over the world. We started our campaign, being strongly influenced by these results; maybe that is why we have such a revolutionary enthusiasm. We are determined to draw a warning signal with this campaign and to change the national behavior about personal hygiene” stated Razvan Dumitrescu, Strategy Director Lowe.

Starting from this idea, Lowe & Partners and Lowe PR teams developed a complex strategy, meant to transform the problem of perspiration into the subject of a national debate.
The campaign, which had three stages, was launched through a teaser supported by a strong guerilla campaign in the media – press, internet, radio and TV: English women do it five times more often!

The teasing stage was followed by a media event that had the purpose of making the public opinion aware of the PROBLEM. Planned with humor and creativity by Lowe PR team, the media event gathered opinion leaders in a luxury concept store, inviting them at the launch of a unique perfume.

The invitation for the event was an empty perfume bottle carrying the promise of the most special perfume ever. This intrigued the curiosity of the journalists. An impressive number of the press representatives came at the revealing of the new brand. Their amazement was twice as big, when, during the event, a huge perfume bottle was uncovered in the centre of the location bearing a label branded with one huge, shocking word: PERSPIRATION. Andi Moisescu started then talking about the shocking statistics concerning the issue of perspiration in Romania.

The most popular beauty opinion leaders in Romania gathered at the event to properly deliberate on the issue, which is, believe it or not, a problem of national security. Jojo, Aurora Liiceanu, Alin Galatescu and Dana Argesan ventured in talking, unprejudiced, about this tabu subject: perspiration in Romania.

For an hour, all the guests put aside the shame and euphemisms, deciding unanimously that women in Romania are being confronted with a serious problem concerning personal hygiene and concluding that drastic measures must be taken.

“The starting point was the most relevant one. Nobody expected such an “indecent” theme to be the subject of a debate at this level. However, after 10 minutes we started to see grim faces all over the room. We knew that moment that we had achieved our goal. We have faith in the intelligence of the Romanian public, and we hope that very soon we will be able to make public the first turnovers” declared Hortensia Nastase, Deputy Managing Director at Lowe PR.

The biggest surprise came from Jojo, who, at the climax of the discussion, stood up and declared that she is determined to encourage this change by subjecting herself to a unique experiment in Romania: One Week without Deodorant!

The campaign also benefits from a strong online platform. Besides the viral messages that were posted on the Internet, the phase that has just started, Jojo’s experiment is supported with a blog on which everybody is invited to comment and mark opinions on the matter: www.OFacemMaiRar.ro.

“Only a few hours have passed since the launch of the phenomena and the site already generated traffic over our expectations. When it comes to sensitive subjects like this one, with great impact, the internet is the best way to go. The anonymity offered by the Internet is reassuring and guarantees a great freedom of speech, which in real life would be subjected to auto censorship dictated by fear and prejudices”, declares Cristian Pantazi, eLowe.

The campaign will stretch for 3 months and will end in July.

The team involved in the development of this campaign consists of: Bogdan Toac?e, Category Manager Deo and Ramona Bloju, Brand Building Manager Deo on behalf of Unilever South Central Europe; Alina Damaschin – Client Service Director, Cristina Cranga – Senior Account Executive, Andreea Chirica – Group Creative Director, Otilia Mihalcea – Art Director, Cristian Pantazi – e Lowe (Lowe & Partners); Hortensia Nastase – Deputy Managing Director, Raluca Mihaila - Events Manager, Manuela Zidaru - Senior Corporate Executive, Otilia Panainte and Anca Scarlat – PR Executives (Lowe PR).

About Lowe & Partners Romania
• Golden Drum in 2006, second place in the Romanian agencies top (25), sixth place among all agencies (210);
• Awarded at Epica, Clio, New York Festival, Cresta, Golden Hammer and locally at Effie, Ad’Or, AdPrint;
• 14 years in Romania, Lowe has clients like: Coca-Cola România (Burn, Nestea, Schweppes), Unilever (Domestos, Cif, Rexona, Axe, Rama, Clear), Electrolux, Johnson & Johnson, Eximbank, Eli Lilly, Bramac, Boehringer-Ingelheim, TNT Romania, Bayer, Abbott, Austrian Airlines;
• Lowe & Partners Romania is a member of a group of companies among others like: Initiative (media), Medic One (healthcare communication), Brand Connection (media) and Lowe PR (Public Relations);
• Lowe & Partners is an American company with headquarters in London and branches in over 90 countries and over 9000 employees worldwide.

About Lowe Public Relations
Lowe Public Relations covers the whole spectrum of Specialized Global Practices (Corporate Communications, Corporate Social Responsibility, Healthcare, Internal Communications, Marketing & Brand Strategic Communications, Public Affairs, Technology), insuring in the same time the full range of Specialized Services (Media Relations, Financial Communications, Media Training, Research, Issue & Crisis Management).
Lowe Public Relations’ client portfolio includes Orange, Electrolux, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, TNT Romania, Johnson & Johnson, Pernod Ricard, HBO, Eli Lilly, Eximbank, IPID (Institute for Projects on Innovation and Development), Platinum Group, Abbott Romania, Lowe & Partners, Initiative Romania, Brand Connection, Tecton Investments.
Lowe Public Relations team has 12 professionals, among which Hortensia Nastase (Deputy Manging Director), Monica Botez (PR Manager) and Raluca Mihaila (Events Manager).