• Advertising Age, Monday, May 15, 2006 12 PM

The deodorant wars between powerhouse consumer product players Procter & Gamble and Unilever are heating up, with Unilever claiming to have taken a lead with its Axe brand. The company launched Axe only four years ago into a mature market--a daunting challenge for any marketer. New brands taking or even vying for leadership of established categories in developed markets is highly unusual, especially in just a four-year span. But Unilever says ACNielsen data measuring dollar sales in all retail outlets gives it a 13.3 percent dollar share in overall deodorants (men and women's) for the 52 weeks ended March 25, and a three-point-plus share lead not just over P&G's Old Spice but also P&G's women's brand, Secret. For its part, P&G claims there's another way to look at numbers and that Old Spice still leads Axe in both volume and household penetration. "On an all-outlet, volume-share basis, for the entire category [including body sprays], our business is nearly twice the size of theirs," says a P&G spokesman. Still, industry observers note that Axe has set itself apart in the category with edgy advertising that plays to emotions and relationships rather than efficacy, the traditional selling point for deodorants. "They created such a strong presence and big splash in body spray with some extremely smart and sophisticated advertising that really worked," says Michael Wood, vice president-research at Teen Research Unlimited.

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