Men’s fragrance brand AXE launched, this month, a new ad campaign for its Smell Ready collection, to highlight that “Readjusting Won’t Be Easy” and that AXE products will be helpful during this re-adaptation process as coronavirus-related restrictions are lifted.

The spot, created by MullenLowe London, shows how a diverse cast of men have coped with the Covid 19 quarantine and with the challenge of re-emerging into normal life. In the opening of the 50-second video, a young man is shown waking up at noon in his bedroom, on day 234 of quarantine. Other guys are then shown in their apartments, living the quarantine life, which implies a nose blindness. Once they start to get out of the house and meet women on the street, they have all kinds of weird reactions (such as running away, hiding, and freezing), but after using AXE they re-gain their confidence.

The spot also includes a reference to the couple who travel across the world with the woman holding the guy’s hand. In this ad, though, the guy’s hand is really long to that she could be at quite a distance (physically) and don’t feel his bad smell.

The soundtrack music is “Born Free” by Matt Monro.

Jose Miguel Sokoloff, MullenLowe Group UK’s Chief Creative Officer, said in a press statement that “AXE is an iconic brand that has a long history of great communications”. “The post-Covid ‘new-normal’ and how we are learning to adjust to it presented an incredible opportunity for the brand, and timing was of the essence. I am incredibly proud of how this very tight client-agency team seized the moment, created, approved and produced this global campaign in the most bizarre of circumstances. AXE is back”.