December 9, 2024

Advertising: Vaseline Adds a Body Lotion Spray to Its Line

Now Vaseline is pursuing another way to sell more lotion: convince existing users to use more.

The Unilever brand, which says that most women skip using body lotion three or more days a week, with many complaining that it takes too long to apply and absorb, is introducing a line of moisturizing sprays that promise to be quick and easy.

New commercials for the line, Spray Go, feature a woman whose morning routine includes applying the lotion and dexterously dressing in a scant 10 seconds.

In one online-only commercial, after spraying on the lotion, the woman (Emma Chadwick, a dancer) approaches a silk shirt. Reaching one arm into a sleeve while it is still on a hanger, she eases it off the hanger and pulls her other arm through as she executes a full, graceful turn. High heel pumps face the side of her bed, where a skirt is laid out, and leaning on the bed, she hoists herself up, points her toes balletically into both shoes at once and straightens up holding the skirt, which she wraps around herself as she executes another turn and leaves the room.

Like another spot that will run on television, in which Ms. Chadwick twists and twirls into a pullover shirt and jacket, fedora cap, skinny jeans and loafers, it was shot with a single camera and no cuts or editing tricks.

The commercial will be introduced Monday. The campaign is by the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, part of the Publicis Groupe, and also includes print, online banner ads and in-store marketing and sampling. For the commercials, Simon Atkinson and Adam Townley directed, with choreography by Litza Bixler and production by Academy Films.

Vaseline, which declined to disclose spending for the new campaign, spent $32.4 million on all advertising in the first nine months of 2012, up from the $29.1 million it spent in the full year of 2011, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Ricardo Pimenta, global brand vice president for Vaseline, said that the campaign was aimed at what he called light users and addressed their principal impediment to using more. “You might feel that lotion is too sticky or that it just doesn’t absorb fast enough so that you don’t have enough time,” Mr. Pimenta said.

Vaseline claims that this is the first body lotion spray from a major brand, which may seem long overdue since spray sunscreen has been available for about 15 years. But the hurdle for Vaseline, Mr. Pimenta said, was to create a product that, unlike most sunscreens, was not an aerosol spray, since propellants have stirred environmental concerns. Spray Go uses a compressed-air system, with lotion thin enough to spray.

“It had a much tighter ‘viscosity window,’ which is the term that’s used,” Mr. Pimenta said. “This was a very integrated approach that brought marketing, R.D. and the supply chain together to create a convenient spray.”

Spray Go comes in three varieties that are already familiar from squeeze and pump bottles — Aloe Fresh, Total Moisture and Cocoa Radiant — with the new spray cans sharing the colors and design elements of the originals. Spray Go varieties will sell for $8 for 6.5 ounces; the original lotions sell for $7 for 20.3 ounces.

Emma Cookson, chairwoman of the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, said clothes “that might be the most challenging” for the newly moisturized were chosen for the commercials, including silky shirts that unabsorbed lotion can mark and skinny jeans that can be harder to squeeze into when skin is tacky.

As for the commercials each being a single shot, Ms. Cookson said that the aim was for consumers to marvel at them and to share with friends online, where Ms. Chadwick’s feats can be slowed down to appreciate frame by frame.

“In a world of visual trickery and so many fancy special effects, there’s something really delightful and compelling when you see something done right in front of you, in camera and in real time,” said Ms. Cookson.

While the commercials are behind her, Ms. Chadwick, a Londoner with acrobatic and gymnastic training, said she still found herself getting dressed more quickly out of habit. “To put on jeans, I just sit back in a chair, put both feet in them at once, and stand up from the chair and pull them up at once and — Bob’s your uncle — they’re on,” Ms. Chadwick said.

Jen Drexler, a vice president of the Insight Strategy Group and co-author of “What She’s Not Telling You: Why Women Hide the Whole Truth and What Marketers Can Do About It,” lauded Vaseline for introducing something innovative.

“Kudos to them for delivering something new in the delivery system in the lotion field, because there’s been nothing really new in lotions in forever,” Ms. Drexler said. “The benefit of speed has probably been underserved in this category.”

As for the way that quick application is brought to life in the commercials, she liked that they steered clear of depicting women pressed for time as overwhelmed.

“What brands do all the time is show women trying to be efficient in a crazed, harried and rushed scene, but she gets to look like she’s in control with that rush instead of the world coming down on her,” said Ms. Drexler, referring to the Vaseline commercials. “I appreciate that gesture.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/business/media/vaseline-adds-a-body-lotion-spray-to-its-line.html?partner=rss&emc=rss