Dive Brief:

• Direct-to-consumer (DTC) men's razor and grooming brand Harry's debuted an ad campaign starring the hip-hop artist and actor Ludacris, per news provided to Marketing Dive. Titled "A Shower Worth Singing About," the effort promotes Harry's new line of body wash and bar soap products. 
• The video was created by Harry's in-house creative team and shows Ludacris reading to his son from a children's book. The rhymes in the book inspire Ludacris to come up with his own raps while doing dishes and singing in the shower. 
• Harry's said it is using the campaign to show the many "ands" of being a man and to counter outdated stereotypes around masculinity. 

Dive Insight:

The new Harry's ads depicting Ludacris caring for his son and performing chores around the house come as a bid to court younger fathers like millennials, who have criticized marketers in the past for their portrayals of modern dads as bumbling or lacking sensitivity. The push falls in line with Harry's broader messaging strategy and follows a three-minute short film, "A Man Like You," that the brand debuted in February. The short film focused on an alien that comes to Earth in search of what it means to be a man and who discovers "there's no one way to be a man," per the campaign's tagline. 

In its latest spot, Harry's is continuing to tackle the subject of modern masculinity and likely hoping to make more waves in the men's grooming space with a line of body wash and bar soaps. DTC brands like Harry's and Dollar Shave Club have proved incredibly disruptive to the razor category with a focus on lower price and the conveniences of e-commerce, which younger consumers tend to favor. Traditional CPG giants like Procter & Gamble have seen their razor businesses slide in recent years as a result. Gillette's share of the U.S. men's razors market fell from 70% in 2010 to 54% in 2016, with a larger portion of the category going to DTC brands, for example. 

DTC brands are broadly seen as having more agile supply chains than traditional packaged goods marketers and the ability to build stronger customer relationships, per research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. By focusing on body wash and soap, Harry's is looking to make an imprint on another area that's typically been commanded by CPG heavy hitters like P&G and Unilever, through brands like Old Spice and Axe and Dove, respectively. 

Consumers continue to express an interest in more modern portrayals of gender, and marketers are responding. Another example of a digital disruptor taking on such a strategy is the men's retailer Bonobos, whose recent #EvolveTheDefinition campaign questions traditional definitions of masculinity and includes a documentary-style video that shows a diverse group of men discussing the subject.