Fango is, very simply, mud – not just any mud, mind you, but a blend of mud from the nutrient-rich earth of Tuscany whose use as a healing natural substance dates back to the fourteenth century. Borghese has taken this mud and created a line of enriching skin products around the Fango brand name. Over 25 years, Fango has set the company apart as a cosmetics innovator.

In August 2010, Borghese and its ad agency, Agency212, launched a new-fangled marketing campaign for Fango dedicated to revitalizing the brand’s promise. The campaign strikingly strips Fango to a bare minimum – literally – with provocative, appropriately cropped shots of male and female nudes. The words DO YOU FANGO? are scrawled on their skin in the famous green-hued mud. Males were notably included to demonstrate that Fango is a skincare product that can be used by both men and women.

Agency212 CEO Bill Tucker told brandchannel, “The trick here was to find the perfect balance between having fun with the campaign and keeping it aligned with the very rich heritage of the Borghese brand. This approach visually broke through the clutter in an extremely saturated beauty marketplace. ‘Do You Fango?’ engages customers and creates many ways to have a conversation with them.”

Youthful bodies were employed in the campaign to elevate the brand amongst a younger audience as well as Borghese’s core customer base. As the Borghese brand name itself has aged in the last fifty years, so have its customers. “Do You Fango?” was intended to attract younger shoppers and educate new consumers about the Fango product line – while intriguing loyal customers who may not have known that Borghese was now offering some new additions to its product family.

The multi-million dollar ad campaign is still running in Allure, Elle, InStyle, Marie Claire, and Vogue magazines. It includes online ads as well as a presence in social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Online is a key component because Fango is a product that calls for “replenishment” purchases online. In New York City, the campaign has been supplemented with coordinating images on taxi tops, phone kiosks, and bus wraps.

“Do You Fango?” is expected to continue at least through the end of 2011. In its latest iteration, the campaign has evolved slightly to include a graffiti-based “wallpaper” that highlights the many product categories offered by Borghese.

Although Fango is considered a luxury cosmetic and therefore expendable in the context of today’s economy, some consumers still see it as essential. “Consumers make very interesting trade-offs across seemingly unrelated categories,” Bill Tucker said. “They strive to get their lives into balance while still feeling like they are treating themselves to those things that make them feel normal and well taken care of.”

Over 50 bloggers have written about Fango, reaching some 12 million unique readers. The product has been covered in various media and has garnered a number of awards, notably Elle magazine’s “Beauty Hall of Fame Award” and Shecky’s “Beauty At Its Best Award.”

To date, the “Do You Fango?” campaign has resulted in a nearly a 111 percent increase in direct traffic to the Borghese website. Overall, Fango sales on the web are up 18 percent from last year. Web searches on Google over the past twelve months show a 100 percent increase in the term “Fango” and a 110 percent increase in the words “Borghese Fango.”

Georgette Mosbacher, CEO of Borghese, told brandchannel, “It was our desire to capture and celebrate the unique beauty in everyone with our “Do You Fango?” campaign, and we hope to continue to spread the benefits of Fango to many new fanatics for the next 25 years, one beautiful face at a time.”

Bill Tucker added, “Our overall unique strategic and creative approach for Fango has set the foundation of building a lifestyle brand based on Borghese’s inherent credibility of offering unique and innovative products to the consumer that emphasize the way one looks, feels and lives out daily life.”

It seems that “Do You Fango?” has managed to make mud a beautiful thing.

Barry Silverstein has been a frequent brandchannel contributor since 2007. He has thirty years of advertising and marketing experience and is currently a freelance writer and marketing consultant. He founded and ran his own direct marketing agency and held executive positions with Epsilon, a leading database marketing firm and Arnold, a major ad agency. Silverstein is the author of three marketing books, including the McGraw-Hill book, The Breakaway Brand, which he co-authored with Arnold CEO Fran Kelly.