From Deodorant to Premium Fragrance: How Rexona Generated 50M Views with Influencer-Led Marketing

Rexona, under Unilever, is a leading deodorant brand known for functional sweat protection. In 2025, the brand set out to disrupt Malaysia’s highly competitive fragrance deodorant category by repositioning itself beyond hygiene into premium fragrance and beauty territory. Competing against fragrance-led players such as Nivea and Safi, Rexona aimed to elevate perception and steal share within a cluttered and influencer-dominated beauty landscape.

The campaign aimed to reposition Rexona Vitamin+Bright Pear Restore as a premium, perfume-inspired deodorant validated through influencer authority. It sought to:

• Drive retail traffic and purchase intent through strategic Watsons and Guardian integrations to deliver measurable, outcome-driven growth.
• Solidify top-of-mind awareness among digitally native women while establishing category authority as a Vitamin C-powered beauty essential.
• Generate widespread cultural talkability and consumer education through immersive storytelling and high-impact brand collaborations.

Breaking the “hygiene only” ceiling

Malaysia’s fragrance deodorant space is saturated with heavy media investment from competitors. Fragrance discovery today largely happens on TikTok and Instagram, where influencers shape scent credibility and “dupe” culture conversations.

There were two major challenges:

• Break through category clutter and reposition deodorant as a premium fragrance product.
• Ensure influencer marketing did not remain surface-level awareness but translated into retail intent and sustained visibility.

Turning deodorant into a designer accessory

One thing that made the campaign distinctive was the Rexona x Sometime collaboration, which introduced a limited-edition Mystery Pack featuring an exclusive designer handbag. This partnership shifted the deodorant’s positioning from a functional hygiene product to a lifestyle accessory, using the premium reward to drive purchase urgency and collectability.

Influencer marketing as the launch engine

To bring this collaboration to life, influencer marketing was positioned as the primary launch engine. With AnyTag, AnyMind’s proprietary influencer marketing platform, we were able to identify influencers that were the perfect fit. The platform’s AI-powered KOL discovery and audience analysis helped narrow millions of potential profiles into a precise creator list that matched Rexona’s objectives, product positioning, and target demographics.

Rather than using KOLs as amplification tools, Rexona structured influencers as credibility drivers and retail conversion bridges across a phased rollout across Instagram, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu.

1. The Launch Event Awareness

The campaign began with a high-impact New Product Development (NPD) launch event in collaboration with Sometime and Watsons. A total of 24 influencers were embedded as live storytellers, capturing scent-testing moments, collaboration reveals, and styling integrations. By framing the Rexona Vitamin+Bright Pear Restore within fragrance and fashion contexts, they validated the product’s premium credentials while introducing the Mystery Pack mechanic to their audiences.

To convert online interest into physical sales, 12 influencers were activated at the Guardian Roadshow. Content transitioned from lifestyle imagery to experiential retail storytelling. Influencers documented booth interactions and provided clear instructions on how consumers could qualify for the exclusive handbag, directly driving store traffic and participation.

2. The Seeding Campaign

To sustain high-frequency visibility beyond the launch spike, the campaign expanded into a structured seeding phase designed to maximize peer-level validation and repeated exposure. A total of 166 influencer-led content pieces were deployed, spanning macro, mid-tier, micro, and nano creators to ensure layered authority, relatability, and sustained social proof.

AnyTag served as the central campaign management hub, streamlining coordination between Rexona and AnyMind to ensure all deliverables, timelines, and messaging remained consistent across every platform. Once the content was live, the platform’s real-time tracking and data insights provided full transparency into reach and engagement metrics, allowing the team to immediately measure impact and extract strategic learnings for future initiatives.

By integrating a fashion-led collaboration, structured persona storytelling, retail integration, and scaled peer amplification, Rexona transformed influencer marketing into a coordinated influence system — one that elevated brand perception while directly supporting commercial outcomes.

Elevating Rexona to a premium fragrance standard with AnyTag

The Rexona x Sometime campaign successfully repositioned the brand within the premium lifestyle space, exceeding industry benchmarks for cost-efficiency and engagement.

Across all phases, the campaign generated:

• Total reach: 33,700,000+
• Total views: 50,700,000+
• Total engagement: 99,600+
• Cost per view (CPV): RM0.01 against RM1.50 industry benchmark

The NPD launch served as the primary authority driver. Synchronized executions across Instagram and TikTok transformed the product unveiling into a viral moment. On Instagram, the campaign achieved 17.3 million reach and 27.2 million views, while on TikTok, we achieved more than 16 million reach and 23.1 million views. Ysabell emerged as the campaign’s top performer on both platforms, generating over 1 million views and 5.3k engagements through a high-hook content style that drove immediate audience action.

The seeding campaign sustained visibility through peer-driven validation across Instagram, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu. Across all platforms, the campaign achieved over 32.3K reach and 307.4K views, reflecting strong audience interest and engagement. In addition, the campaign generated 9,000+ likes, 800+ comments, and 1,200+ saves and shares, further highlighting the value delivered to the brand and reinforcing its recognition among the target audience.

Nury Zulaikha led the performance on Instagram and TikTok, with her TikTok content alone garnering over 33K views by leaning into the platform’s algorithm-driven discovery. On Xiaohongshu, 15 creators utilized lifestyle-driven storytelling to generate 37.5k views. 卉卉 (Hui Hui) was the top performer, integrating the product into daily routines to secure 28k views.

Beyond paid deliverables, the campaign secured 9 value-added posts, signaling genuine creator affinity for the collaboration.

By combining a fashion-led collaboration with a multi-tier influencer strategy powered by AnyTag, Rexona successfully reframed deodorant as a fragrance-led lifestyle product.

The campaign demonstrated how influencer ecosystems can move beyond awareness to influence brand perception, retail behavior, and cultural relevance.

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