Old Spice Will Drop a Man in the Woods and Let Twitch Viewers Control Him for 3 Days

Old Spice is tapping into the gamer community, which clearly overlaps with its own target, with an interesting campaign on Twitch—the live social video platform for gamers—in which viewers get to control a real human being dropping in a forest for three days.

Beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. PT, visitors to twitch.tv/oldspice will use the site’s chat feature to send commands to the man to perform. Users will work together to unlock achievements or activities for Nature Man. (“Arm wrestle an obviously fake bear? Hear stories from a wise tree? Stumble across interesting and good smelling characters? The scenarios are endless—and completely up to the participating gamers,” says Wieden + Kennedy, which built the experience.)

Beyond that, well, we’ll just have to see how it unfolds.

“Old Spice is thrilled to bring an outdoor gaming experience like no other to our fans and the Twitch community,” Kate DiCarlo, communications manager for P&G beauty care, tells AdFreak. “We’re always looking for new ways to entertain and build brand loyalty with our fans, and Twitch is the perfect partner to help us reach the gaming and live streaming culture in an authentic way. Plus, with scent names like Timber, Amber and Citron, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our new nature-inspired Fresher Collection.”

The stream will run from 10 a.m. to sundown PT on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.



Will Ferrell Hates Cancer and Wants to Fight It by Playing Video Game With You

Great Odin’s Raven! If you ever wanted to play video games with self-proclaimed video game wiz Will Ferrell, here’s your chance to do so—and support a great cause.

The Saturday Night Live alumnus is asking fans to donate money to help kids who are battling childhood cancers. One lucky donor will get to spend an evening gaming with Ferrell in San Francisco, all of which will be livestreamed on Twitch.

The proceeds from the campaign, being crowdfunded on Indiegogo will go to Cancer for College and DonateGames.org. The former provides scholarships to cancer survivors; the latter helps children with cancer and their families by using video games and other technology, including selling game bundles to raise money for financial aid or donating video games and equipment to hospitals.

Hear the contest announcement from Will Pharell himself, who allegedly once played Asteroids for 37 hours without taking a bathroom break:

If you don’t win Will Ferrell’s SuperMegaBlastMax Gamer Challenge, there’s still plenty of swag to take home from partners like Amazon, Twitch and Microsoft. There’s also awesome limited-edition Ferrell gear including his special gamers’ sunscreen, and best of all, signed cowbells. Trust me: We all need a little more cowbell in our life.