Lynx has the balls to change with the times with its wonderfully strange Shavertorials

The Background

The world is littered with brands that didn’t become obsolete so much as gently made themselves irrelevant through their own marketing and positioning – or rather a refusal to change with the times.

Lynx has been on a (well-documented) journey.

From its “get your legover with Lynx” positioning of the 1990s by way of an ill-fated (as it turned out) campaign to give away trips to space, to becoming a brand campaigning on male mental health and representation - it’s been a hell of a ride!

But it’s also a textbook lesson (that Heinz might have done well to observe) in changing with the times - and of just how much a brand as robust as Lynx can adapt to new audiences in a new era without losing its core values.

The personality remains consistent even as the years wear on.

The Big Idea

Which brings us to their latest outing as Lynx has taken a step into ASMR (or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response – yes, I had to Google it).

Defined as causing “a feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound”, ASMR has been around for a while.

But Lynx has grabbed ASMR (in one execution quite literally) by the balls and given it its own twist.

What They Did

In a series of films, Lynx promotes its two-in-one shower and shave gel through the medium of a trio of ASMR videos (or Shavertorials) featuring hyper-sensitive microphones and a naked man exhorting his peers to get inventive with their shaving.

Thus, we witness the aforementioned hero shaving his chest, his legs and then – through the medium of a couple of coconuts it would appear – his balls.

Clearly, the refusal of the beard trend to die off and Lynx’s move further into shaving has prompted the brand to find new uses for its shaving products.

And anyone de-fuzzing their chest and legs on a regular basis is going to get through a lot of Lynx, which can’t be a bad thing for sales (I can’t imagine the bollocks require quite so much coverage).

The films are a rather loving pastiche.

So bizarre that they’re worth watching despite their four minute length. And I am quite sure that a number of people out there will find them genuinely useful.

The Review

Hi-jacking ASMR is far from new. A bunch of brands over the last couple of years have done so.

But this take on the genre has a typically Lynx-ian take. The films are wonderfully strange, the casting apt and appropriate. The production well-observed and the ASMR references are simultaneously loving homage and pastiche.