Axe Made Its Own Cringe Era the Joke — "You Got Better. So Did We."

Axe, the Unilever-owned personal care brand, is taking a playful jab at its own 2000s image with a social-first campaign and three returning limited-time fragrances. It's Y2K nostalgia marketing used as a repositioning device rather than a throwback for its own sake.

"You Got Better. So Did We."

In the spot "Afterdate," a woman tells her partner she wishes she'd met him earlier — and he transforms into a pimply, Y2K-coded version of his younger self, complete with spiked hair, double-popped collars and puka shell necklaces. The closing voice-over: "You got better. So did we."

A second ad, "Wedding," runs the same setup on a wedding dance floor later this week.

The Target of the Joke Is Precisely Itself

The legacy of the 2000s, when Axe launched in the U.S. and quickly became popular with teen boys, has been hard for the brand to shake. Beyond the association with adolescents over-applying body spray, Axe made its mark with sexed-up advertising in which women were magnetically drawn to men wearing its products — the "Axe Effect."

This campaign acknowledges those roots tongue-in-cheek while positioning the brand for a more sophisticated consumer. It doesn't deny the past; it uses it as the punchline, then declares in one line that the present is different.

The Scents Are Reissued. The Spray Tech Isn't.

The creative promotes the return of Kilo, Touch and Anarchy, with packaging carrying Y2K Reboot branding and visuals like a Game Boy-inspired handheld. The products originally launched between 2002 and 2012, but they've been refitted with the more refined spraying technology Axe began rolling out earlier this year.

The collection reaches "fans who grew up with Axe and never left, while introducing a new generation to the iconic scents that built the brand," said Dolores Assalini, head of Axe U.S. "It's heritage, remixed for today — grounded in the confidence and self-expression that have always defined Axe."

Nostalgia Is Now a Default Tactic

Harking back to the early 2000s has become common among marketers appealing to Gen Z and younger millennials who grew up in the era. Axe ran a February campaign, "The History of Overdoing It," in which a scholar documented instances of men going over the top — body spray included.

This isn't Axe's first attempt at changing its messaging. Ads earlier in the decade reimagined the "Axe Effect" as more vibrant and inclusive, and during the peak of purpose-driven marketing in the 2010s the brand took on toxic masculinity and bullying.

Unilever's Men's Grooming Bet

Unilever has expanded its personal care portfolio, last year acquiring grooming upstart Dr. Squatch, which also predominantly targets men. Dr. Squatch's viral playbook is a throwback in its own way — its most memorable ads feature "Euphoria" actor Sydney Sweeney in a bubble bath as a Body Wash Genie responding to men's grooming desires.

The Marketer's Takeaway

When a brand's past is a liability, there are three options: bury it, apologize for it, or make it the joke. Axe chose the third, and what makes that work is that the product actually changed. Only after the spray technology was reworked does "so did we" read as a statement of fact rather than a line of copy.

The common failure with nostalgia is reissuing old assets and leaning on the feeling alone. Axe reissued the scents but updated the technology and flipped the tone to self-deprecation. Brand activation moving on proof rather than claims is the same pattern as United broadcasting an ESPN show from 35,000 feet, and on embracing the joke about yourself, Starbucks letting Martha Stewart answer whether the PSL is 'basic' is the closest comparison.