To what extent do shaving techniques used in adverts for female depilatories reflect the poses women actually strike in order to reach tricky bits of leg fuzz?
It’s a question that’s inspired the debut digital campaign from Friction Free Shaving, a company claiming to be the world’s first shaving club for women.
The #Shoga, or ‘shaving yoga’ marketing campaign plays on the body contortions women make when they shave.
Poses mentioned in the ad include the ‘Shin Salutation’, said to be the most popular, whereby a woman stands on one straight leg, bends the other out in front and rests it on the side of the bath tub or toilet seat; the ‘Crescent Loon’, in which a woman leans back and twists around to get the back of her calves and thighs; and ‘The Crab’, where she bends over and/or squats to reach the upper thighs and bikini line.
“For most women the daily shave is a far less sensual affair than it appears on screen,” said Briar Keen, Co-Founder & CMO of Friction Free Shaving.
“It involves twisting, turning, stretching, bending and balancing to reach hairs all the way from our toes to our armpits.
"We wanted to talk openly about this for once, to remove some of the taboos around women’s shaving and to have a bit of fun along the way.”
The #Shoga ad was based around customer insights from more than 2,000 women, which revealed some of the most popular body shapes that women make during a shave.
The brand chose to feature a more conventional bathroom set up for the film, in a deliberate attempt to move away from traditional shaving adverts frequently featuring celebrities in luxury bathrooms showing off long, slim and already smoothly shaved limbs.
As part of the campaign, UK brand Friction Free Shaving (whose abbreviation, FFS, is said to reflect the challenges women face when shaving more honestly than traditional brands) reveals that while it can’t fix the #Shoga shapes women make during a shave, it can make shaving less irritating by posting affordable yet premium razors to women each month.
Friction Free Shaving was inspired by the success of the shaving subscription model used by Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s in the US.
In April 2017, the company secured a £1.25m venture capital investment with Athene Capital LLP to drive growth in partnership with British publishing group Northern & Shell.
Northern & Shell created the #Shoga campaign as part of a raft of brand activities to continue driving rapid growth. These activities include launching a new premium razor called Rose (already available) and releasing shaving support products, due later this summer.
Other agencies supporting the campaign include creative agency Hearts and Minds, which has helped develop and grow the FFS brand from the start; Spectrecom Films, which produced the #Shoga video; and Roar Local, which supported FFS with digital marketing.
