Last year was the first time we saw a woman ‘actually’ shave-off her long armpit hair in an advert thanks to Billie #projectbodyhair and until that was brought to my attention at yesterday’s Social Media School with @armadilllosocial I hadn’t thought beautifully smooth legs being shaved as AT ALL weird! So now I am annoyed at myself for never thinking this was completely non-sensical! Considering I’m a filmmaker I could have supported my sisterhood and come up with this idea myself in a pitch meeting, ‘yeh let’s actually shave off real hair’ (guffaw guffaw went the ad agency).  I’ve also learned it was Ovid the Roman Poet who mooted hair-removal ideas in the first place – ‘thanks for that’ say all women angrily and ‘thanks for that’ says Gillette from their holiday homes in Fiji. This could easily be a blog about the oppressive representation of women (and men) in advertising, but lets save that for another time. Here are some stats then (thanks again Armadillo) the top 500 social posts of 2018 were video. 37 million people use YouTube. Up to 80 per cent of social media content is video! 3 and a half million Facebook live films have been aired and over 2 billion people have watched them. There’s some big numbers right there and to think Billie’s very normal hairy pits went beyond viral creating waves around the world. These ideas are right under our noses (armpits). My advice is simple. You don’t have to hire an ad agency to see how hairy your armpits are. You DO have to know what all your customers/clients have in common? You don’t have to hire an ad agency to create a viral stunt, but you do need to be relatable and strike a chord. Crikey, if just shaving an armpit is keeping it real then what message can you put on film to keep it refreshingly as real? Sometimes in business it’s easy to forget who you’re appealing to and why you’re appealing to them? How can you strip back the layers and find the simplest of message to focus on that your customers/clients will absolutely love and trust you for and connect with? I hope every time you shave your pits or your beard from now on – whoever you are, you use that time wisely to think about your next social media film message (no one was encouraged to shave off their armpit hair in the making of this blog).