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A young man surrounded by two attractive women. He sprays himself with deodorant and a mosquito pricks him. A frog eats the mosquito, lands on a plate and is eaten by an old man. He gains strength and potency, but dies while making love to a younger woman and, lying in his grave, is consumed by worms. These then end up in a tequila bottle, from where they eventually end up in the stomach of a man and the effect starts to work again.

Axe: worth a Silver Effie in Germany this year

 
Effective product and effective advertising, it seems: sales of the Lever-Fabergé-owned Axe brand rose by 18% after the ad had broken, making it brand leader in its market. And for the Hamburg ad agency, Lowe, that translates into a silver Effie, the name of awards given out annually to the campaigns which can be proven to have had a beneficial effect, typically on sales of the brand featured.

Unlike Cannes Lions or awards from the Art Directors Club, says the newspaper Die Welt, Effies given out by the German ad agency association, GWA, are not meant just to recognise creative highlights, they are only awarded to campaigns which are of proven effectiveness. Typically this will be in the context of a new product introduction, relaunch, or a pursuit of market share, but the context will tend to be different for every brand.

With Ebay, for example - which, along with the Procter & Gamble-owned toilet paper brand Charmin was the only entrant to be awarded a maximum Gold Effie at this year's awards - the objective was to construct a brand image that embodied fun and enjoyment. And, according to Franz-Rudolf Esch, marketing professor at the University of Giessen, that's what ad agency Jung von Matt achieved. "With its 3... 2... 1...mine" formula, the Ebay feeling, that is the emotional pursuit of an object of desire, authentically conveyed, he tells the paper. Ebay users, he said, received a hit in the head and the heart, while those who have seen the ad buy ten times more often than those who have not.

The situation was again different for Charmin. With 80 available brands, the market for toilet paper is truly saturated. In conjunction with the agency Publicis, Die Welt says, FMCG giant Procter & Gamble, long characterised by a conservative approach to product presentation but a major marketer of 'low interest' goods, was able to establish Charmin as the no. 3 brand on the market, before eventually overtaking category leaders Zewa and Hakle. "The concept of using the bear to inject emotion into what is a taboo subject worked perfectly", says Esch, who considers that the character perfectly emodies the qualities of softness and strength claimed by P&G for its products.

The campaign for the VW Touran, says Die Welt, was similarly efficient. Produced by DDB Berlin and centring on the claim "Mehr als ein Familienauto" ('More than just a family car'), it was able to claim market leadership after just three months.

Click on the link at the top of this page to read a fuller version of this story for yourself, in German, in the pages of Die Welt.