One product range that deserves the axe.

I've been lobbying clients for the alignment of product and brand communications for some time now, and truly believe that it's often the product that needs tweaking (read: overhauling) as much as the communications. The metamorphosis though must always be based on an authentic, compelling and resonant insight. And with the Axe Dark Temptation it isn't.

My initial instinct was that this range had an odd, er, flavour, and from my cursory check of on online opinions hundreds of others (mainly women) appear to agree; but in real terms the strategy flaw is this: as much as (mainstream) heterosexual men want to be attractive to women, they also want a fragrance that doesn't compromise their own sense of masculine identity.

And if you're a gay man, then the proposition (more chicks) doesn't have any pull at all.

A futher issue is that the product reeks of desperation. Do potential consumer targets also purchase genital-enlargement pills, I wonder?

As an Easter gimmick, I'll give it to you, the Axe chocolate line is certainly more original than some of the Cadbury's Creme That Egg entries, but ultimately the over the middle and long-term a chocolate deodorant is really going to start to smell off.

And I'd usually some credit to an idea that seemed to make perfect sense in the shower but then not in the real world, though I somehow think that wasn't even the case here.