Y&R grow animal beards for schick's free your skin campaign

Y&R grow animal beards for schick’s free your skin campaign
images courtesy of electric art

the beard trend has quickly become an international craze and grooming brands, like razor company schick, aim to encourage the regular trimming and upkeep of burly facial hair. for their latest advertising campaign, they’ve teamed up with Y&R new zealand to create a humorous and bizarre series featuring three men with ‘beastly’ beards. the overgrowing hair has become so burly and unkempt that it has turned into an animal, carrying the message that men should shave before their beards get out of hand. the ‘free your skin’ series sees the otherwise manly beards as fuzzy criters desperately clinging on to and hugging the mens’ chins, warning scruff-lovers to manicure their mustaches before they turn feral. 

a grey ferret clings to the man’s chin

a ferret wraps around the man’s face

the campaign series

creative image production studio responsible for making the scenes come to life describe their creative process: ‘several test comps were done initially to explore the size, type, color & position of the animal. we settled on a mixture of ferrets for the limbs, face & tail & rabbits for the softer fuller fur of the body. the agency street cast an awesome range of hipsters & troy worked his magic shooting the selected talent in auckland. stephen did a great job shooting the furry critters matching the portrait lighting & posing the animals to match our rough comps. our menagerie consisted of 6 ferrets & 9 rabbits, all various colors. the rabbits were the best looking of the bunch although the ferrets had all the personality & a rather…unique…smell about them.’ 

gif showing the photo manipulation process

original sketch of the design concept

drawings indicate the style of the campaign

project credits:

agency: Y&R new zealand
executive CD: josh moore
associate CD: tom paine
art director: mark tallis
copywriter: cam dowsett
senior account manager: mike keen
agency head producer: christina hazard
agency producer: marique knight
talent photography: troy goodall
animal photography: stephen stewart