Barry Hand

Axe (Lynx to you and me) have some really clever use of SMS engage­ment in their Day & Night cam­paign run­ning at the moment.

The print ads are cen­sored, with the strap-line: “One is suit­able for gen­eral audi­ences. The other one is not.”

Read­ers can see see the cen­sored parts of the advert by tex­ting a num­ber after 9pm, when they will then receive an MMS that fills in the print ad blanks.

Here’s an out­door ad where the bot­tom half is revealed at night. No opt in on this one though, but it’s remark­able in a way that will make you remem­ber it if you’re pass­ing by at night.

I like what they’ve done here, and I gen­er­ally dis­like Lynx/Axe adver­tis­ing, espe­cially the SMS ad as it gives read­ers a some­thing in return, although how good that is depends if you’ve never seen the lin­gerie sec­tion of an Oxen­dales cat­a­logue.