By Frank Zeccola

In mid-2006, "Good Morning America" declared the death of the metrosexual. The iconic man who is straight but stylish and well heeled with a sophisticated sense of fashion and spending—and a sensitive feminine side—was out. His 15 minutes were up.

In the "GMA" report, Best Life magazine editor Stephen Perrine pointed to the demise of Cargo magazine and a defining moment in the film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" as evidence: "When they ripped the chest hair off Steve Carrell, a whole generation of men said, 'If that's what women want, I'd rather stay a virgin,'" Perrine said.

Scruffy, macho heterosexualism, it seemed, was back in.

At the same time, Philips Norelco was quietly preparing to release a new product that aimed to change everything—and reignite dialogue over the state of the metrosexual.

A real man's challenge: Man up on manscaping

The Philips Norelco Bodygroom was developed as an electric shaver like any other electric shaver, except for one small difference: "It was geared to shave and trim everywhere below the chin," says Brett Carrey, senior vice president, consumer marketing for Manning, Selvage & Lee (MS&L).

And he means everywhere. The Bodygroom is specially designed to shave, remove and sculpt hair on men's chests, backs, bellies—and even the unspeakable nether regions. Unspeakable, that is, until Carrey and MS&L had something to say about it.

As the agency handling the launch, MS&L knew immediately that this would not be your run-of-the-mill product launch: "It was a new category entry for Norelco, and we were asked to launch the product and generate awareness among men 18 to 35," Carrey says.

Not only was this a new category geared at the coveted 18-35 demographic, but to say the subject matter was delicate would be missing the point. Carrey and MS&L would have to take this delicate topic of men's body grooming and make it acceptable for men 18 to 35 to talk about during a time when metrosexual values were losing popularity. In essence, they would have to bring back the metrosexual.

The strategy: Capitalize on the "Death of the Metrosexual" to spark a discussion with the target audience about this taboo topic through a variety of channels most influential to them—peers, personality and online media

"The biggest challenge in this campaign was taking a taboo topic and making it part of the vernacular," he says. "It's not common that men openly talk about grooming." Especially after Steve Carrell's daring antics in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

At the same time, any PR or marketing effort would have to be extremely targeted. "This wasn't something we could market to the population as a whole," he stresses. "We didn't want to market this to children. That meant that we didn't have the luxury of TV advertising" or anything else that might attract a general audience.

Extreme product launches call for extreme measures. Instead of treating the Bodygroom launch as a straight product launch, Carrey wanted to introduce a new, more acceptable option for men's grooming.

"There was a lot in the news about the death of the metrosexual," he says. "We wanted to capitalize on that trend and make bodygrooming something that people would discuss around the water cooler. We took the approach of, how can we spark a dialogue instead of just launching a product? How can we get this topic of male body grooming into the mainstream and make it an acceptable topic?"

The answer was psycho-demographics.

Psycho what?

The general theory of psycho-demographics holds that it's not enough to break your audience down into simply age, income, gender and geographic location. In today's landscape of data clutter and consumer savvy, you have to get at what motivates and drives consumer behaviors. That info can be gleaned from understanding their habits and the social networks they're involved in.

As PR professionals, you must be able to answer key questions about your audience beyond what media they consume: Where do they hang out? What websites do they visit? Which brands do they want to be associated with? Which specific products are they most interested in? What do they think about?

"We really took a deep look at who our target audience is, and where they're spending their time," Carrey says.

The result: "We noticed that, in addition to spending a lot of their time online, humor is something that really resonates with them."

And it was exactly humor and the Internet that ultimately made this campaign so successful.

The secret weapon: The web

Working with Philips Norelco and their partners, DDB, Tribal DDB and Carat, MS&L helped drive traffic to Shaveeverywhere.com, the website created by Tribal DDB, as a place that gave men permission, confidence and validation to use the Bodygroom to "Trim the hedges" or "Take a little off the top."

The website showcases the unique features of the Bodygroom using interactive flash video. An attractive, well-groomed man, deemed the "Innuendo Guy," appears in a bathrobe and teaches you the basic uses of the Bodygroom and answers questions like where to shave, can you use it in the shower, do women prefer a well-groomed man and others.

The site is charming, funny and innovative, and leverages euphemisms like "manscaping" to discuss the more delicate aspects. Additionally, in true Austin Powers fashion, images like apples, carrots and peaches appear on the screen during the "bleep" that sounds if the man speaks an unspeakable word.

MS&L knew they were on to something: "The humor and content was used to create a word-of-mouth campaign aimed at consumers who would become advocates for body grooming."

In essence, Shaveeverywhere.com did for men's body grooming what Tampax, Always and Kotex aim to do for feminine hygiene products: Talk about sensitive body issues using self-conscious and deconstructive humor to cunningly wink at their target audiences without embarrassing them or condescending to them. The euphemistic language also serves to create a sense of community within the target demographic without offending the greater mainstream population.

And the web was the perfect medium: "One of the biggest keys to success was the integrated approach with the online aspect and leveraging the power of the web. This wasn't just, 'Hey, here's a new product.' This was, here's a new product with a terrific website that leverages humor around the pure nature of the topic of body grooming. This was crucial for reaching our target audience and enabling them to help spread the word."

Client buy-in: The final frontier

Of course, MS&L were lucky to have a client that was so open to such an ambitious project: "Philips Norelco was terrific," Carrey says, "because they were a very traditional brand before this, and the campaign really went out on a limb here. We worked closely with them to take this risk and get their buy-in throughout the creative process. In doing so, we were able to convince them by showing that this would resonate well with this very targeted medium."

The results: Kings of all media and rulers of Amazon(.com)

When it was time to reach out to the mainstream media, MS&L looked first to the King of all Media: "We knew humor resonated with our audience and so we researched what they were listening to, and Howard Stern seemed to have the biggest appeal among our audience, and of course he's the self-proclaimed King of All Media. But we knew he was the right outlet because he regularly talks about the topic of body hair on the show."

They managed to secure a 35-minute branded segment on Stern's satellite radio show.

During the segment, entertainer Jodi Moore demonstrated how the Bodygroom worked by shaving one of Howard's most well-known characters, Beetlejuice. The segment landed more than three million media impressions, and the buzz grew from there.

The Bodygroom also made key appearances at the Sundance Film Festival and the International Home & Hardwares Show, in which six burly firemen were willing to bare it all in a shave-off for charity. The product was also offered to radio stations throughout the U.S. as a giveaway prize for callers who claimed to be "follically challenged."

Over the course of the campaign, over 200 million media impressions resulted, including key hits in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Variety, The Los Angeles Times, Men's Health, HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," "Geraldo at Large," Stuff.com and more. Additionally, more than 1,500 blogs reported on the Bodygroom and the website, and the product received 103 positive consumer reviews on Amazon.com. By the end of the campaign, sales shot up 33 percent, making it Philips Norelco's second-best-selling SKU.

Secrets for success: Read on as Carrey offers more tips and explains why this campaign won two bronzes in General, Consumer and Internet, Consumer and two silvers, in New Product Launch, Consumer and Silver PR Innovation of the Year, PR Services, at the 2007 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media Relations & Publicity:

1. Tap into key audience psycho-demographics. "Know your audience well and get insights into not only their media consumption, but also into the specifics about what's appealing to them," he says. "In this case, it was humor."

2. Go out on a limb—if it makes sense for your brand and audience. "Take a risk sometimes," he suggests. "This campaign was edgy and a little taboo. But we had to make it mainstream. Don't be afraid to encourage your clients to go beyond the tried-and-true aspects of the brand." Just make sure it makes sense to the brand and its core audience. In this case, the humor was perfect for the 18-to-35 demographic.

3. Leverage multiple platforms to boost your PR program. "Be integrated," he suggests. "Combine your advertising and media outreach with online initiatives."

WINNER'S PROFILE: MS&L goes well beyond media relations, acting as partners and advisors to our clients, powering their businesses with proven methods and tools for strategic planning, corporate and product branding, corporate reputation, crisis management, and stakeholder relations.

Delivering the right message to the right audience at exactly the right moment requires more than just 'integration' of services like advertising, public relations or direct marketing around a core strategy. To us, it's about diversity – delivering messages respectful of cultural or geographic differences to provide the same positive brand experience and value proposition – no matter who hears it or where they hear it.

MS&L has specialists in a range of areas of expertise and industries whose true value is realized not from their specialization, but from their convergence.