The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025
Axe lets the TikTok designer who mocked its logo make the real can — and sells it
After Emily Zugay's parody rebrand hit 5M views, Axe produced her white clip-art can as a limited edition, hired her as 'Big Boss' and sold it on Walmart.com.
Axe (Unilever) · Emily Zugay
What it had to solve
Axe needed young men to reappraise a brand they associated with overpowering locker-room scent. In July 2025, TikTok designer Emily Zugay — known for deadpan, deliberately amateur redesigns — posted an unsolicited Axe rebrand: a plain white can with a clip-art axe, saying the brand 'wasn't made for boys in middle school locker rooms, it was made for men.' The video passed five million views.
How it works
In July 2025, TikTok designer Emily Zugay, famous for deliberately cringe, clip-art-level logo remakes, posted an unsolicited redesign of Axe: a stark white can with one literal axe graphic, and the line that the brand 'wasn't made for boys in middle school locker rooms, it was made for men.' The video drew over five million views and half a million likes, and commenters began telling Axe to make it real.
Most brands mentioned in Zugay's videos acknowledged the moment with a reply or a PR mailer. Axe instead treated the parody as a brief. Within 24 hours the Unilever brand had mocked up the can and joined the joke across its profiles, then ran teasers that generated 1.75 million further views before the partnership was even announced. Zugay was named Axe's new 'Big Boss', a fictional executive role given a LinkedIn page and acted out in posts about 'important' business calls.
On 10 October 2025 the limited-edition can went on sale at Walmart.com — the first time either Walmart or Unilever had turned a viral meme into a purchasable product, according to the campaign's Shorty Awards case. Even the product page was written in Zugay's voice. Axe reported a 316% rise in average daily can sales at Walmart during the run, with 92% of buyers new to Axe and 82% new to the deodorant aisle, plus over 27 million impressions and 10,000 new followers.
Why it lands
- Producing the parody made the brand part of the joke rather than its target, turning mockery into permission to reappraise.
- Fast commerce — from meme to Walmart.com in weeks — kept the momentum of a social moment instead of losing it to production timelines.
- Giving Zugay a real role ('Big Boss') created ongoing entertainment around the product instead of a one-off stunt.
- Selling through Walmart reached exactly the mass-market young male shopper the reappraisal was aimed at.
What it did
Walmart.com saw a 316% increase in average daily Axe can sales during the run, with 92% of buyers new to Axe and 82% new to the deodorant aisle; the campaign drew over 27 million impressions and 10,000 new followers, and became Zugay's largest brand partnership to date.
What you can take
When the internet remakes your brand as a joke, the boldest move is not to correct it but to sign the joke: commissioning the critic puts the brand inside the culture instead of outside it.
Since then
The limited-edition can launched on Walmart.com on 10 October 2025 as a social commerce drop rather than a permanent SKU. Axe reported a 316% increase in average daily can sales at Walmart, with 92% of purchases from people new to Axe and 82% new to Walmart's deodorant aisle; the campaign reached 27 million impressions and added 10,000 followers. The work became a case study in creator co-creation and meme-driven commerce, framed by Axe's marketing head as part of a broader Unilever shift toward social-first campaigns, and was entered in the Shorty Awards as 'The Axe AXE Can'.
Sources
- Axe's latest swing: When TikTok absurdism meets brand design
- New Axe Design: Viral Humor That Became a Real Product
- The Axe AXE Can (Shorty Awards case study)
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