Unilever's Axe makes an understatement on TV

Unilever this week started running short comedy films on interactive TV to promote its Axe Proximity products. But consumers will have to watch the films all the way through to figure that out. Taking its own tag line to heart – Make an Understatement – the campaign only mentions the Axe brand at the end of the videos.

The campaign, on IFC Free On-Demand, Verizon FiOS and Time Warner, boasts a reach of about 25 million homes with digital TV and on-demand services.

The one- to three-minute films focus on conversations between two friends, Billy and Fitz. Billy aspires to be a lady's man, but is misguided in his pickup attempts. Fitz is the foil who reminds Billy to tone it down. Their conversations are punctuated by the tag line – Make an understatement. The laughs come from Fritz's overzealous efforts to woo girls, which involve everything from reading Anna Karenina in a restaurant to sporting an ill-advised moustache.

A Unilever spokeswoman said Axe is the first advertiser to test the equivalent of "search marketing on TV". She said audiences using Verizon's advanced search to seek out films will find the AXE films at the top of their search results.

"On-demand viewers will either be drawn to the free films by their quirky titles, or they will encounter teasers for the films that play in front of other real movie trailers."