Right when I thought this ad campaign couldn't get any better, THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE upped the ante by posting videos, over the past two days, of the lead character replying directly to specific YouTube and Twitter users who posted comments and questions. When you watch the video replies, some part of your brain is going: But wait, he's not real. Why is a fake character having a conversation with real people by addressing them using their YouTube login names? Sounds bizarre, but it works. The strategy and the tone of the videos remind me of the way that ENTOURAGE and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM both manage to skewer Hollywood and yet be authentically part of it at the same time. It's like having a character from your favorite TV series knock on your front door and say hello. And if this post ever reaches TheGuyOnTheHorse, my YouTube handle is @julip1470, btw. ;-)
The YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/oldspice
Wieden+Kennedy is knocking this one out of the park. Some of the Old Spice man's replies are hilarious and better written than a typical, late-night talk show monologue. Most agencies would have teased this stunt for weeks before actually launching it and made a big to-do about telling fans that the character was going reply to their comments. But instead of pulling a LeBron, W+K wisely understood that announcing their plans via Twitter, Reddit.com, and a press release on the same day that the stunt began gives the videos an element of surprise, charm and mischievousness.
Do we need a new word to describe these sorts of ads? Because let's not forget that's what they are. 'Viral videos' seems too vague and bland. Not since Burger King's THE SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN and THE WEDDING CRASHERS: CRASH THIS TRAILER have I seen such great execution of brand-generated, top-down viral videos (as opposed to user-generated, bottom-up viral videos, a la JibJab) that are customized for particular fans. Nor do we normally see so many iterations posted in one swoop (more than 100 at last count). Brands are supposed to move slowly and spend ages planning, debating, and getting internal approvals. Didn't they release two new ads in the last two weeks (the mustache one, BOAT, and the swan dive one, QUESTIONS), and already, they're rolling out another wave--more like a tsunami--of viral ads? Old Spice and W+K, don't you know you're supposed to lumber along and roll out an uninspired Phase 2, like a sweepstakes or something?
The official Old Spice site
http://www.oldspice.com/videos/
I am also fascinated by the fact that the lead character is black. Growing up mostly in Atlanta, I can't recall ever seeing a black guy as the main spokesperson for a national campaign for a personal grooming product, except in magazines, bus ads, billboards, and other media aimed only or primarily at black people. I try to imagine driving through Dunwoody or Sandy Springs in the 1980s and seeing a billboard of a black guy starring in an ad for Shield, Irish Spring, Brut, Mitchum, Sure, Dry Idea, or Gillette, but I know it. Would. Never. Happen. And if such an ad were ever to exist, the brand in question certainly would never have the audacity to assert that the black guy was the guy "your man could smell like," whether you were brown, yellow, Puerto Rican, or Haitian, as the song goes.
Mysteriously, even though I lived in a city that was 70 percent black within the city limits and 30 percent black in the suburbs, black men appeared in ads for deodorant, shaving cream, hair products, and razors only when I opened up magazines, such as Ebony in the 80s or Vibe in the 90s, or took a rare ride on MARTA to go downtown. The men would be advertising either black-specific products, such as Magic Shave or S-curl cream, or they'd be in a suitably 'urbanized' ad for a vehicle, soda, fast food chain, alcohol, appliance, electronic device, etc. Black people, especially black men, were hardly ever used as the universal everyman, unless, of course, it was an ad for a sports brand, like Gatorade, Nike, or Reebok, and somehow, I doubt that those brands intended Michael Jordan or Bo Jackson to be identified as an everyman, with a lowercase e, the way that the guy in a national Toyota ad is usually a no-name, unfamous actor, playing a Joe Everyhusband sort of person. When black folks did pop up as lead characters in mainstream ads, it too often was in the form of an Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, or Oh-my-goodness-I-can't-believe-how-great-this-Pine-Sol-cleans type of role.
Change is afoot, though. Now black dudes are making out with white women in chewing gum and jeans ads, selling insurance, and yes, sending up romance novel archetypes in cologne ads. I would love to know how Isaiah Mustafa got the role, and if the character was always intended to be a black guy or if the actor's race was unspecified in the creative brief.
Would also like to see the sales numbers for Old Spice, to see if the campaign is moving product and changing buying behavior. It would interesting to find out if the profile of the typical buyer has changed in the past five months and if Old Spice was stealing some of Axe's thunder, for example. If you have any intel, please share.
Interview with the 2 guys at W+K who conceived of the ad campaign
http://www.wk.com/wke/show/wk_classics/episode/7
