Social Effort Scale
- Brand
- Axe
- Year
- 2014
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Quiz & Trivia
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Barton F. Graf 9000 LLC
- With
- UNIT9
Objective
Unilever needed to launch the new Matte Effect styling line from Axe Platinum Series and tie it to an "effortless" positioning — a look with no visible effort behind it. Rather than buying reach, the brand built a tool that let young men test how hard they actually try on social media, turning an abstract slogan into a personal, shareable score that could spark conversation on its own.
Solution
The player connects one or more of their Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts to the site. It scans their own posts — hashtags, emojis, keywords, self-mentions, check-ins, posting frequency — and returns a personal score from -500 to +500, with a verdict: trying too hard, not trying hard enough, or effortless. Connecting several networks shows a separate score for each plus an overall average, and the player can compare their result against friends, browse celebrity scores, and check a city leaderboard. From there they share their score, and the final screen leads into the Axe Matte Effect product under the line "Matte is Effortless."
Results
Sales rose 32% in the first month after launch and a further 22% in the months that followed. The site drew over 55,000 sessions from 48,000 users, averaging 3 minutes on site, across more than 32 countries, plus over 2,300,000 Twitter impressions — all with $0 spent on paid social media.
- 1
The player lands on socialeffortscale.com, which poses a question: is this person trying too hard on social media? The site offers to measure their "social effort."
- 2
The player picks which account to connect — Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram — and authorizes the site to access it; the measurement cannot start without granting access.
- 3
While the player waits, the site scans their own posts for hashtags, emojis, keywords, self-mentions, posting frequency, and check-ins.
- 4
The player receives a score on a scale from -500 to +500, along with a verdict: trying too hard, not trying hard enough, or effortless.
- 5
The player can connect additional networks, in which case each one gets its own score and verdict, plus an averaged overall result across all connected accounts.
- 6
The player compares their score against friends' results and against celebrity scores, such as Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake both landing in "trying too hard" on Twitter.
- 7
The player can browse a real-time leaderboard of cities ranked by how hard their residents try on social media.
- 8
The player shares their result on social media.
- 9
The session ends on a product pitch: Axe Matte Effect, positioned as the effortless alternative to trying too hard.
