Unilever France has just launched environmentally friendly 'compressed' deodorants for men.
This follows last year's success of the equivalent sprays for women, which LSA, the French retail analysis body, awarded its 2014 Trophée de l'innovation.
The deodorants leave carbon footprints that are 25 per cent smaller than their ordinary counterparts. The sprays themselves are littler (and thus, less aluminium is required for their production), and they only use half the propellant gas of comparable products.
In 2014, Unilever made women's deodorants with this design available under the lines Dove, Rexona and Monsavon. In conjunction, it effected a "marketing campaign which communicated not just brands, but a technological breakthrough", according to François-Xavier Apostolo, vice-president for marketing of Home & Personal Care of Unilever France.
According to Nielsen, 15 per cent of 2014 Unilever deodorant sales in France were owed directly to the new compression technology.
To promote the compressed deodorants for men, Unilever has 50 weeks of televisual advertising planned across France's main TV stations, which will begin next month.
"We are going to apply the same recipe for success that worked last year for women's deodorants," Apostolo said. "An entire Internet site has been dedicated to the new technology. We also have commercial material which shows its benefits in relation to counterpart products."
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article written by Peter Donnelly.
