Old Spice had a couple of hits back in April with its "Shower" and "Watermelon" ads for its Fiji Bar Soap. Now, the brand's Swagger Bar Soap gets some play in this amusing spot from Wieden + Kennedy called "Architect." Again, it's a parody of '80s bar-soap commercials, complete with cheese-spirational song lyrics and meaningful brow-sweat-wiping moments … and a comically sideswiping ending. Nice slippy product shot at the end, too.
Here's an airport stunt from Heineken that truly embodies the brand's adventurous spirit. Twice this week, Wieden + Kennedy in New York set up a board at JFK's Terminal 8 and dared travelers to play "Departure Roulette"—changing their destination to a more exotic location with the press of a button. They had to agree to drop their existing travel plans—without knowing the new destination first—and immediately board a flight to the new place.
On Tuesday, a man played the game and ended up going to Cyprus instead of Vienna. (He had been planning a six-week visit with his grandparents, but soon learned he would be headed to Cyprus on a 9:55 p.m. flight. Heineken gave him $2,000 to cover expenses and booked him into a hotel for two nights.) W+K set up the board again on Thursday, and brought cameras along to document the gameplay. The game is inspired by "Dropped," the new Heineken campaign that launched a month ago from W+K Amsterdam in which four men are sent to remote destinations and film their adventures. We should have footage from Thursday's event next week. For now, Heineken should set this up in the Moscow airport. There's a guy there who would welcome any chance to fly to oblivion.
Nike's "Just do it" slogan, unveiled 25 years ago this month by Wieden + Kennedy, might be the last great tagline in advertising history.
Yes, other notables have come since—among them, Apple's "Think different" and Volkswagen's "Drivers wanted"—but none have come close to duplicating the cultural impact and mass appeal of "Just do it." I frankly doubt that any ever will.
When 80-year-old Walt Stack jogged across the Golden Gate Bridge in Nike's first "Just do it" spot, chatting about his daily 17-mile run and joking that he kept his teeth from chattering in winter by leaving them in his locker, we lived in a more homogenous media world. At the time it seemed complex and cluttered, with some cable systems sporting 100 or more channels, and the recently launched Fox network broadening the broadcast funnel by 25 percent. All that was small potatoes, however, compared to today's ever-expanding digital/mobile/shareable/wearable mega-sphere, which has turned each consumer into his or her own media production and distribution channel, and to a large extent—despite the vaunted "social" nature of it all—isolated us instead of bringing us together.
Back in '88, a news image, song lyric, sitcom catchphrase or advertising slogan could spring to life in a way that's nearly impossible with today's media fragmentation. Modern content may be "snackable," but for the most part it doesn't stick to the ribs. Most of the lists, memes and apps are quickly, often instantly, discarded. Ideas have no time to build the momentum or gain the traction needed to become ubiquitous or, like "Just do it," beloved.
The "big idea" is, of course, a marketing cliche. It's considered old-school and somewhat outmoded, frequently derided by today's data-driven practitioners. That's a shame. Big ideas are, first and foremost, big. From a brand standpoint, they add rather than subtract, lending weight and substance to campaigns that can become unfocused and diluted by too many moving parts. Big ideas strengthen individual executions and provide platforms that make campaigns more than the sum of their parts.
"Just do it" was one of the biggest ad ideas ever, destined to cut across all conceivable psycho/socio/demographic lines in ways author Dan Wieden couldn't have envisioned when he tossed off the phrase in 20 minutes, concerned that the initial half-dozen ads in the campaign, spotlighting various subjects and different sports, had no unifying message.
"It was a simple thing," Wieden recalls in a 2009 Adweek video interview in which he discusses the effort's genesis. Simplicity is really the secret of all "big ideas," and by extension, great slogans. They must be concisely memorable, yet also suggest something more than their literal meanings. Rather than just putting product notions in people's minds, they must be malleable and open to interpretation, allowing people of all kinds to adapt them as they see fit, and by doing so, establish a personal connection to the brand.
Exchanging tweets is no substitute for helping people think, dream, or in Nike's case do things in a new way. "Just do it" was open to interpretation, and many folks adopted it as their private mantra. And not just in the realm of fitness and exercise. They just did all sorts of things as they strove toward personal goals. These ranged from starting businesses to popping the question, and in some cases extricating themselves from bad relationships. As a result of the line's resonance, Nike's brand image soared.
It's worth noting that "Just do it" is not a typical feel-good marketing tagline. There's a hard-edged, suck-it-up aspect to the phrase that runs counter to most advertising pablum. It's empowering but makes no promises, implying, in fact, that tough, hard work and personal sacrifice might be involved. On that level, it's an honest slogan, more so than most, and that's a big part of its appeal.
Perhaps the line's attitude stems from its ironic and unlikely origin. Wieden says he channeled, of all pop-culture figures, double murderer Gary Gilmore, who in 1977 became the first American executed in a decade, and famously told his executioners "Let's do it!" before facing the firing squad. That says something about the obscure, inexplicable nature of creativity—and brings me to my final point about why we might never see a slogan on the magnitude of "Just do it" again.
Big data doesn't necessarily kill big ideas, but it can thwart inspiration by attempting to quantify the unquantifiable. Because media is so splintered compared to 25 years go, brands will continue to target based on statistics, eschewing bold strokes for brief inroads in the hope of quick sales. Few creative teams "just do it" these days. They study, filter and refine their ideas into narrow bits of communication—lists, memes, apps—which, while seemingly focused and on point, are ultimately fleeting and insubstantial, little more than static.
"Just do it" belongs to an era when brands were brave enough to run with their visions and invite consumers to dream along with them.
"He can't ball, he just tall." With smack talk on his sneering lips, 5-foot-9 forward Anton Barrels makes his commercial debut in this Nike Basketball spot from Wieden + Kennedy, set during a shirt vs. skins draft in the Maryland hometown of real-life 6-foot-9 superstar Kevin Durant. The ad, directed by David Gordon Green of Chelsea Pictures and edited by Geoff Hounsell of Arcade Edit, introduces Durant's KD VI Nike shoe, and he gets chosen first for the local game. It's all a big in-joke, because Durant was famously taken second in the 2007 NBA Draft, trailing Greg Oden, who's probably worn casts more often than sneakers during his injury-riddled pro career. (Where's Greg's new footwear line, you heartless bastards!? Dude's got doctor bills to pay!) The commercial is amusing even if you don't know the backstory, though it helps. Frankly, I was rooting for Barrels, a sweat-soaked, tie-and-tank-top-wearin' everyman, to be the top pick, because his misplaced moxie steals the show. Sorry, Kevin, but in my book, you're still No. 2. Credits below.
CREDITS Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Global Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Ryan O’Rourke Art Director: Jason Campbell Copywriter: Nathaniel Friedman Account Supervisor: Jordan Muse Account Executive: Jessica Shaw Executive Producer: Matt Hunicutt Producer: Chris Capretto
Production Company: Chelsea Pictures Director: David Gordon Green Director of Photography: Eric Treml Executive Producers: Allison Amon, Lisa Mehling, Pat McGoldrick Head of Production: Adam Guliner
Editorial: Arcade Edit Editor: Geoff Hounsell Assistant Editor: Sean LeGrange Managing Director: Damian Stevens Executive Producer: Nicole Visram Visual Effects: Airship Post Visual Effects Producer: Greg Heffron Color: Sean Coleman at Company 3 Sound: Jeff Payne at Eleven Sound Color Company: MPC Colorist: Mark Gethin
"Everyone wants to control video game characters by chewing. Right? Right?!" Working off a brief that apparently read something like that, Stride Gum, Wieden + Kennedy London and Johnny Two Shoes have launched Gumulon, which uses the front-facing cameras of iOS devices to detect your mouth movements. By chewing, you can make a helmeted alien named Ace jump around to avoid the clutches of a prehistoric cave beast. Once Ace gets eaten, the camera take a shot of your crazily chewing face, which you can share on social media. (That's an improvement on the barf faces some party hearties like to send around.) Gumulon is available for free in the App Store because, really, who would pay for such a thing? It can also be played by tapping iPhone, iPad and iPod touch screens, so those with lockjaw won't miss out. Where will it end? Silicon Valley investors may soon be lining up to back Belchulon, SpitScreen! and Musical Toots—at all of which, by the way, I'd be unbeatable.
In a cute take on motion controlled games, Stride Gum invites you to enter the world of Gumulon, where you’re represented by a “rebellious miner” named Ace. Ace, a strange green helmet-wearing thing, can only control the “intergalactic action” and ultimately vanquish the prehistoric cave beast if you concentrate on chewing while staring at your iPhone. When your jaw finally collapses after the strain of coercing Ace around the mine, the monster will eat Ace/you after seasoning you and taking a photo for posterity.
Watching the gameplay video makes this activity look like the dweebiest way to spend your day. I hope I never see someone sweating as they chew emphatically on the subway. This game should be played at home, if at all. Thankfully, Gumulon also comes in a touch version, should your mandibles tire of mining.
I will, however, give Stride’s effort points for novelty and its do-good nature. If we collectively achieve better breath through gamification, I can’t complain.
Neil Christie of Wieden + Kennedy in London received the letter below on Monday morning from a 10-year-old girl who seems to have fallen in love with the agency's "Cog" spot for Honda—the instant classic which was released a decade ago, possibly before this girl was even born.
"It was astonishing how you did all of it," she writes. "How do you make it so smooth? It must have taken you months to get it right." The girl says she tried a similar experiment "with my little brother Alex's toy truck and my stationary" and managed to make it work. Now, she wants to visit the agency.
Christie writes: "I can't help thinking that a visit to our office will be a bit of a disappointment for Melissa—it's just like a normal office only more untidy—but it's a very good letter for a ten year old. Neat handwriting and only a couple of errors. Perhaps there's a future for her as a copywriter."
A commercial that inspires a love letter from a child a decade after it was made—that is special advertising. See the letter below, along with the spot and the making-of video.
We’ve received confirmation that Carl Jannerfeldt, who has spent nearly the last three years at BBDO serving as a digital creative/copywriter on, perhaps most notably, AT&T’s now-ubiquitous “It’s Not Complicated” campaign, has joined Wieden+Kennedy New York as a senior creative. Sources familiar with the matter add that Stockholm native Jannerfeldt officially assumed his post yesterday and will work across a variety of accounts at the agency, which counts clients including ESPN, Heineken, Delta and Jordan Brand.
Jannerfeldt’s most recent AT&T work, run out of both BBDO New York and Atlanta, featured some NBA legends, though the videos appear to have now been taken private. Ah well, we always our charming efforts featuring the roundtable moderator and the kids, which the new W+K staffer was involved with (one example below).
Update: Got some clarification from the man himself. Jannerfeldt tells us that he was mainly involved in the AT&T “Brackets by Six-Year-Olds” digital campaign that launched during March Madness, the concept of which inspired the spots above, hence why his name was included in the credits. Thanks for the clarification, sir.
Nathan Sorrell, the heavy kid from Nike's infamous "Jogger" ad by Wieden + Kennedy, has lost 32 pounds since last summer—and plans to lose 30 more. The London, Ohio, native, now 13, returned to the Today show recently and reflected on what motivated him to follow through on a promise he made after the Nike shoot. "I still can't believe that was me then, and this is me now. It just looks a lot different," he says. "I would never have changed my lifestyle if I was never in this commercial. That's not the only reason, but that really did help." Sorrell has been working with a personal trainer and a nutritionist and making healthier choices generally, which has helped him drop from 232 to 200 pounds. On a recent visit to Bob Evans, "I got a turkey sandwich" and a side of fruit, he says. "Usually that would be a double hamburger, cheese and all that bad stuff. Usually, it would be fries. Just stuff like that. Just little changes, but that's obviously carrying me 32 pounds less."
More goofiness from Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy—a scratch-and-sniff banner ad, which of course they're calling the world's first. It's running over on The Onion's sports section. Clicking on it takes you to a form you fill out—after which they'll send you something in the mail that will let you "smell the Internet." It lacks the immediacy of real scratch-and-sniff gimmicks, perhaps, but spares you from looking like an idiot at the office with your nose to the computer screen. It promotes the Wolfthorn line of products.
First, Wieden + Kennedy physicist and copywriter David Neevel broke the laws of God and man by using weird science to separate Oreo cookies from their creamy filling. Now, he's changed his tune, literally, by designing a convoluted contraption that turns a guitar—in his case, a bitchin' Flying V—into a computer keyboard. As he strums and plucks, the notes are translated into signals that the PC reads as keystrokes, and words appear on screen. Some commenters take Dave to task for going about things the hard way. Opines Chris Shaw in the comments section of the YouTube video: "Wouldn't it have been easier to write a few lines of code that would convert MIDI notes to keystrokes? Then you wouldn't need the arduino and all the external hardware just a MIDI interface." Gosh, Chris, wouldn't it have been easier to STFU? Well, at least you know what Arduino is, which is more than I can say for myself. (I'm guessing it's the pick. It's the pick, right?)
Few brands have mastered the marketing non sequitur quite as well as Old Spice, which just rolled out two new, fascinatingly bizarre ads for its Fiji Bar Soap. Parodying similar spots from the 1980s, the ads quickly take a surrealist turn. In the 15-second version, the singing narrator struggles to keep up with the ad's transition from shower to basketball-watermelon to soap. The 30-second execution follows a handsome doctor being stalked by his shower, even during surgery. A third spot will debut this summer. As always, Wieden + Kennedy manages to barrel past the line of absurdity while still somehow managing to keep the product front and center. Weirdness weirdness weirdness … buy soap.
Facebook just posted the new ad below, from Wieden + Kennedy, on its own site—it will also air Saturday evening during the Final Four on CBS. The social network has had trouble connecting with consumers through its ads before—the "Chairs" spot was roundly and notoriously mocked. This new spot, for the Facebook Home software, which essentially turns Android phones into Facebook phones, has its own issues. It shows an airplane traveler using Home to flip through photographs, each of which comes to life in front of him—sunbathing friends appear in the overhead compartment; his nephew shows up in the aisle with a face full of cake; the drag queen Shangela Laquifa Wadley pops out of the flight attendant's service cart. There's a lot going on. (Oddly, the traveler also ignores a request to turn off his phone; apparently he can't miss a single status update.) Directed by MJZ's Fredrik Bond, the spot is big and cartoony—and surreal, too, which seems to have completely flummoxed the commenters on the Facebook page where it's posted. (The level of negative reaction there is quite remarkable.) It's sometimes hard to know why Facebook, whose image problems usually stem from it seeming too big and too invasive, doesn't try to capture small, human moments rather than cosmic or circus-like ones. Maybe next time. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Facebook Project: Facebook Home Spot: "Airplane"
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Creative Directors: Stuart Harkness, Chris Groom, Dan Hon Copywriter: Dan Kroeger Art Director: Johan Arlig Producer: Endy Hedman Account Team: John Rowe, Leah Bone, Anya Esmaili Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman, Joe Staples Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz
PRODUCTION Production Company: MJZ Director: Fredrik Bond Executive Producer: Kate Leahy Line Producer: Line Postmyr Director of Photography: Roman Vas’yanov
EDITORIAL Editorial Company: Joint Editor: Tommy Harden Post Producer: Yamaris Leon Post Executive Producer: Patty Brebner
VISUAL EFFECTS Visual Effects Company: The Mill Shoot Supervisors, Project Leads: Chris Knight (2-D), Dave Lawson (3-D) Producer: Christina Thompson Executive Producer: Sue Troyan 3D Artists Lead: David Lawson Matte Painting: Tom Price Modelling: Milton Ramirez, Blake Sullivan, Timothy Hanson Texturer: Edwin Fong Tracking: Martin Rivera Rigging, Animation: Jacob Bergman Animation: Blake Guest 2-D Artists: Nick Tayler, Narbeh Mardirossian, Peter Cvijanovic, Trent Shumway Titles, Graphics: Albert Yih, W+ K Motion
MUSIC, SOUND DESIGN Music+Sound Company: Walker Composer: Jumbo Sound Designer: Michael Anastasi, Barking Owl Producer: Sara Matarazzo
MIX Mix Company: Eleven Mixer: Jeff Payne Producer: Caroline O’Sullivan
Cookie or creme? Perhaps not surprisingly, Oreo says it's both. Following the "Whisper Fight" Super Bowl spot, the #cookiethis/#cremethis Instagram campaign, the Oreo Separator videos and the "Life Raft" TV spot, Wieden + Kennedy today wraps up its "Cookie vs. Creme" campaign with SuperImportantTest.com, an amusing grab bag of a website which makes it clear that there's no wrong answer to the question of which part of an Oreo is better. Submitting a vote on the site takes you to one of more than 30 silly videos—from 2-D horse animations to robotic cats and everything in between. Directors, production companies and YouTube personalities from "six different time zones" (!?) created the clips, the agency says. After each one, you can go back and cycle through the others. All in all, the campaign was a pleasant confection—six weeks of inspired silliness which proved that even with kind of a dumb premise, Oreo can still have plenty of fun. Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Oreo Project: Super Important Test www.SuperImportantTest.com
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Creative Directors: Jason Bagley, Craig Allen Digital Director: Matt O'Rourke Copywriter, Digital Creative: Jarrod Higgins Art Director: Ruth Bellotti Account Team: Scott Sullivan, Jessie Young, Ken Smith Broadcast Producer: Katie Reardon Broadcast Production Director: Ben Grylewicz Interactive Producer: Robbie Veltman Executive Interactive Producer: Lori DeBortoli Information Architect: Jake Doran Digital Designer: Paul Levy Creative Technologists: Ryan Bowers, Billy McDermott Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Susan Hoffman
In case you were wondering, the domain name www.superimportanttest.com is no longer available, thanks to W+K and Oreo, who bring us, yes, a “Super Important Test,” which as we imagine was the intention is hardly a test. You have two options (cookie or cream) and you’re correct either way. Get it?
“Super Important Test” marks not only the conclusion of W+K’s Oreo’s “Cookie vs. Creme” campaign that began with the buzzed-about “Whisper Fight” spot from the Super Bowl and the subsequent “Separator Machine” clips, but the relationship between W+K and the Mondelez brand itself. As you may know, Draftfcb and now the Martin Agency work primarily on the Oreo account.
Anyhow, W+K curated quite a bit of content for the website–more than 30 different videos may play after you click cookie or creme–but this type of limited platform really begs the question: What’s the point? How does this sort of advertising advance the OREO brand in any meaningful way? I’m asking a serious question, not just trying to be glib, so if there is an answer, please post a comment.
Virality for the sake of virality is turning into a common approach for most creatives, and a website full of 30 unrelated internet videos that may or may not be funny seems like a great way to waste an advertising budget. Oreo was never going to choose cookie over cream or vice versa, but it didn’t have to choose. This is a case of a clever idea that simply ran out of ingredients.
And thus, W+K Portland and P&G bid farewell to Old Spice’s “Wolfdog,” who in the past week has garnered over 4 million views via videos such as this and this and who’s even produced a Tumblr as well as a record. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and Wolfdog is now out as Old Spice’s director of marketing and you can see his resignation clip above. Some people, though, have told us that this campaign is fairly similar to the one from Atmosphere Proximity to promote “The Big Ad Gig.” What do you think? Check out one more clip from the week-long campaign if interested as well as credits after the jump.
It says something about banner ads that the best ones—with a few exceptions, like this and this—are the ones that are laughably, shareably bad. You've seen them. And now Old Spice is parodying them. Or rather, its new marketing chief, Mr. Wolfdog, is parodying them. He posted the five banners below to his Tumblr today, with the same note on each: "I have achieved another mountain of a business achievement. I have made effective banner ads." Wolfdog may be a shameless, talentless moron, but he's not wrong—and in that sense, he may be the most hilariously prototypical CMO ever. Since introducing himself to the world on Monday, Wolfdog—the marketing brains behind the Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products" (influenced maybe a little by Wieden + Kennedy)—has been busy all over the Internet. He's posted more YouTube videos; made a Pinterest page, Vine videos and an album of inspirational business music; hosted Google+ Hangouts with his Twitter followers; posted a toll-free number (866-695-2407) to help those who need to look busy at work; played Call of Duty: Black Ops II on Xbox Live; made animated GIFs; and whipped up websites like worldsbiggestchart.com. In short, he's done everything (and much more) that a marketing director should do in social media—while inherently poking fun at how hollow and rote and mindless it all is. Which of course is what makes it actually amusing and worthwhile. Such self-referential anti-advertising could feel overly cynical, but here it rises above—as usual for this agency and client—by the quality of the writing.
"Sometimes you gotta eat people, America. That's how business works." Old Spice has a charmingly roguish new executive director of marketing, who brings a uniquely authentic vision for selling Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products." That's because he's a wild animal. But luckily, he has a futuristic wolf-to-human translator voice box contraption strapped to his neck, so he can explain himself to you, and why he's so awesome at what he does. His advice? "Follow my twitters" and "Readings my blog" to learn more about Old Spice. Failing to do so could result in your being swiftly devoured. Bring in the meat sacks! The campaign, by Wieden + Kennedy, follows the recent snarling-wolf- and screeching-eagle-heavy ads for the client's Wolfthorn and Hawkridge scents.
Mr. Wolfdog saying hi. I'm proud to be Old Spice’s first nonhuman Director of Marketing and look forward to being even prouder. End tweet.
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