W+K Portland Brings Back Mandroid for Old Spice

Back in July, W+K Portland introduced a new robot character with a series of ads in which Old Spice products help him smell like a man.

Now, the agency is a back with another spot for the campaign, featuring the (vaguely creepy) character, promoting Old Spice deodorant and body wash. This time around, he’s hanging out in a hot tub with a few giggly women in bikinis. Soon, however, he starts malfunctioning (again), because robots and water don’t mix. (The women, miraculously, are not electrocuted.) It’s very much in line with the previous spots, so if you liked those, chances are you’ll find this one amusing, too. If not, you’ll probably long for a screaming Terry Crews.

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Is Old Spice's 'Mandroid' a Sexist Ad Campaign or a Satire of Sexist Ads?

As Old Spice and agency Wieden + Kennedy continue to roll out ads featuring their chronically malfunctioning spokes-bot, it’s hard to decide if they’re succumbing to one of the most tired cliches in advertising or if they’re skewering it. 

The gag, which competitor Axe spent years building its marketing around, is that using the brand’s grooming products will make any man irresistible to women. Old Spice took the trope to its logical extreme, creating a mandroid who can score a hot date even when his face is falling off or he’s crushing a woman’s ribs with the weight of his industrial endoskeleton.

In the campaign’s newest spot, the robot has made the mechanically unwise decision to lounge in a hot tub, surrounded by women so enraptured by his scent that they seem to have lost the common sense to leave a body of water that contains a sparking, error-spouting electrical device.

The campaign’s ads definitely are good for a few laughs, but their portrayal of vapid women is also a departure for the brand.

A major factor in the success of Old Spice’s already legendary “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign was that it spoke directly to women (“Hello, ladies.”) and recognized that they played a big role in household purchases like body wash and soap.

Later campaigns switched back to focusing on men, but they did so through oddly charming non-sequiturs like a screaming Terry Crews or a watermelon shower basketball

But now, as it strives for a bigger slice of the lucrative male grooming category, Old Spice has dropped to the lowest common denominator: Use this product, and nothing else will matter. Women will hump you.

Turning women into mindless nymphomaniacs is the epitome of sexist advertising, but with one of the world’s top agencies behind the campaign, one has to wonder if the whole thing is just a meta parody of how dumb most male-oriented advertising is. 

We asked Wieden + Kennedy whether they view the campaign as satire, though they deferred to the client:

“Much like all of our TV commercials, the new spots with the Old Spice robot illustrate the transformational powers of our products in the most ridiculous, over-the-top fashion,” says Kate DiCarlo, Procter & Gamble’s communications manager for Old Spice.

“In this case, we were looking to bring to life the concept that when you use the combination of Old Spice body wash, deodorant and shampoo, the result is a manly, irresistible freshness from head to toes–regardless of your biological composition.” 

In the end, it’s hard to get upset about an ad campaign that’s this knowingly, gloriously dumb. The gags are so well delivered and head-shakingly odd, they make other “this will make you hot” ads seem flacid by comparison.

And if that’s not a definition for satirical advertising, what is? 



W+K Tokyo and Nike Just Want to Have Fun

Here’s an energetic spot to end a short week: South Korean high schoolers love sports just as much as all teens, but the press release tells us that “many barriers” like school and family responsibilities prevent them from having a good time.

The team at Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo took to the streets to gauge their sentiments and came up with the tagline, “When Fun Wins, You Can’t Lose.”

The resulting ad stars “Korean football legend Ji-Sung Park, rising tennis player Duck-Hee Lee, K-Pop superstar Taeyang from the group BIG BANG” and a bunch of kids who just want to enjoy their soccer/baseball/basketball/running and dancing.

Don’t forget the dancing.

We’re still partial to the glow-in-the-dark basketball dude.

Credits below.

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ESPN, W+K Enlist NFL Stars for Their Fantasy League

ESPN and the NFL have reminded us several times over the past week that the football season is about to begin with help from Wieden + Kennedy New York.

In the latest pigskin-flavored spot to promote SportsCenter, the network plays on familiar fantasy football tropes, twisting the narrative 180 degrees with a bit of help from Victor Cruz of the Giants, Jimmy Graham of the Saints and a few other league employees:

After learning that the U.S. military doesn’t really use “Call of Duty” to train soldiers, we’re a little skeptical when it comes to football stars participating in fantasy leagues.

But the image is too amusing to discard, so we’ll stick with it.

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David Fincher Spots Expand on New W+K Gap Campaign

The hottest story in the ad world today concerns the newly-released TV components of a campaign that had a few scratching their heads last week: W+K’s “Dress Normal” for new client Gap.

These ads, directed by David Fincher, add a bit of narrative heft to a campaign previously consisting of celebrities in everyday poses. The first one, “Golf”, elaborates on the “it’s OK if your clothes are a little boring” theme with a bit of spontaneously unconventional romance:

Three more and credits below.

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W+K and ESPN Give College Football Fans a Moment in the Spotlight

W+K New York isn’t the only agency that’s been focused on football recently — and for good reason.

Not only is the NFL about to start things up again, but this year’s college football season will be the first in history to discard the traditional Bowl Championship Series for a true four-team seeded playoff.

The first spot in W+K’s new campaign to promote client ESPN’s college coverage casts fandom as a universal experience…something everyone has “in common”:

A second :15 spot, which also debuts today, highlights some possible shakeups in the world of collegiate pigskin: will the new format allow an underdog to win the day?

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W+K Portland, Craig Robinson Return for Dodge Dart

W+K Portland launched the “Don’t Touch My Dart” campaign earlier this month, pairing comedians Craig Robinson and Jake Johnson. Well, it’s a few weeks later and the duo are back for several follow-up spots the agency has released for the campaign, along with a new interactive digital experience.

In the 30-second “Craig,” Johnson tries to get Robinon’s attention by repeatedly saying his name while he cleans and admires his Dart. Robinson spends the whole time ignoring him, leading into the “Don’t Touch My Dart” tagline (along with accompanying music, composed and performed by Robinson) and a prompt for viewers to “See what happens when you touch my dart.” Clicking on the link leads to an interactive digital initiative where you can move your cursor to “touch” Craig’s dart and see what happens. Try it for yourself here, and stick around after the jump for a couple for “Voice Touching” and “Birdhouse.” (more…)

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W+K and ESPN Remind You That Monday Night Means Football

Yes, we’re still technically living in the Summer of ’14, ten days away from the first game of the 2014 NFL season and two weeks away from the year’s first edition of Monday Night Football, that follow-up to Sunday Night Football or “the only reason anyone still watches NBC.”

In order to maximize the hype, ESPN and NFL films have teamed up with AOR Wieden+Kennedy New York to create a series of slow-mo, documentary-style spots showcasing the sport’s best players as they make their way toward the field in support of a new tagline: “No Other Night Is Monday Night.

It’s like a WWE intro with less HGH and other assorted acronyms. Here’s “Tunnel”, which officially launched today:

Don’t worry, there’s plenty of Manning to go around after the jump.

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W+K Develops a Series of Underwater Apps for Sony's Waterproof Phone

If you ever hoped to pretend your phone were a fish or an aquatic plant, Sony would like to present its Xperia Z1S.

The brand, along with Wieden + Kennedy and development partners Motim and SoftFacade, is demonstrating the phone’s waterproof technology by developing apps designed to be used in and under the water.

A new feature on the phone uses ultrasound to sense when the phone is submerged. A handful of 30-second videos (directed by Sean Pecknold of Society) demonstrate the apps, which capitalize on that detection technology in ways unusual, somewhat amusing and mostly frivolous.

One of the apps is “Goldie,” an on-screen fish that flops around like it’s dying when you take the phone out of the water. Another is “Plantimal,” a modern cross between a Tomagotchi and a Grow Monster. There’s also “Rainy-oke” for, quite literally, singing in the rain, as proven by a drag queen performing Cyndi Lauper.

“Photo Lab” mimics the process of developing photos by hand, in an extra cutesy twist of the knife to a practice all but eradicated by the digital age. “Sink Sunk” offers perhaps the funniest and most practical application of the water detection technology: It’s a simple game for when you’re bored and cranky, hanging out in your kiddie pool.

That’s it, at least so far. The brand is making the source code for the feature available via Github, so other developers can play with different uses, too.

In the meantime, it’s a reasonably fun way for Sony to promote waterproofing, even though that feature is not unique to the smartphone manufacturer or model. And it fits well enough into the art-meets-engineering motif of the brand’s “Be Moved” platform, launched with W+K early this year—even if it does feel a little heavier on the engineering part.

The brand recommends you avoid submerging your phone for more than 30 minutes at a time, though. Just in case you were planning to take it on a nice long scuba dive.



You'll Be Hot and Cold on W+K's New Honda Work, and That's a Good Thing

This Honda Civic campaign by Wieden + Kennedy London is cool. And pretty warm, too.

The centerpiece is an engaging 30-second film that shows the freezing and thawing of a Civic on a stylized desert set. This dramatically illustrates that the automaker tests its vehicles at temperatures ranging from -22°F to +176°F. (This is helpful in case you’re planning a road trip from the North Pole to Hell.)

The tagline for the pan-European campaign is: “Reliability in the extreme.”

Delightful details include a cowboy skeleton that morphs into a snowman and a rolling tumbleweed/snowball. According to a post on W+K’s blog, the agency (and Johnny Hardstaff, who directed through RSA Films) encased the car in ice and let it melt over five hours—filming 200 takes using a motion-control rig, with 3-D enhancements providing the skeleton’s transformation and other effects.

An interactive version is in the works that will allow users to control temperature changes and see the results. I wish they’d let us melt the Civic into a plastic-metal soup, then freeze it until it explodes into sparkling, razor-sharp shards of ice. Now that would be some fancy branding!

Nissan also recently launched ads that show the temperature testing of its vehicles. Though with Poison’s Bret Michaels performing a power-schlock version of “Endless Love,” that campaign is extreme for entirely different reasons.

Check out a print ad from the campaign below.



W+K NY Finds ‘Different Ways In’ for ESPN

W+K New York has a new campaign for ESPN, promoting the network’s coverage of college football and stoking fans’ excitement for the first year of the college football playoffs.

The campaign, entitled “Who’s In?” will run from the start of the season until a National Champion is crowned in January. “Different Ways In” (featured above), the campaign’s debut spot, launches today across ESPN’s networks and digital properties. Narrated by Burt Reynolds, the 60-second spot manages to cram in references to 20 different schools, as well as cameos from Jerry Jones, Jimmy Kimmel, Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Sam Bradford and JJ Watt. That’s not a bad way to stoke excitement from fans of different schools for the FBS College Football Season on ESPN, which begins Wednesday, August 27. Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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Nike Salutes Paul George in Powerful Ad a Week After His Horrific Injury

Nike has a habit of picking its players up—with tribute ads—after major injuries. The brand did so with Kobe Bryant in 2013, and it has now released the inspiring ad above for Paul George following his gruesome leg injury a week ago.

The theme of the Wieden + Kennedy ad is the dreadful uncertainty—short term and long term—that followed George’s open-leg fracture. But the final lines of the ad put the 24-year-old Indiana Pacers star firmly on the path to recovery.

“Without the setbacks, the comebacks aren’t as sweet,” the brand wrote on Twitter. George hasn’t acknowledged the ad directly, but on that score, he certainly seems to agree.



W+K Portland Helps Craig Robinson Protect His Dodge Dart

Amazingly, comedians Craig Robinson and Jake Johnson had yet to appear in any major films, shows or campaigns together before this week.

That all changed with the release of these inaugural clips in W+K Portland‘s new campaign for client Dodge. The theme is simple: no one can touch Robinson’s new Dart — even his equally famous and strangely nosy neighbor.

That’s the first of three :30 spots…

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We Hear: W+K Signs S7 Airlines

While the agency’s official comment is “no comment”, an anonymous tipster can confirm today that Wieden+Kennedy‘s newest client is S7, formerly known as Siberia Airlines.

Never heard of it? It’s the largest domestic airline in Russia, or the equivalent of our own Southwest to Aeroflot’s United.

We’re told that the company, which previously stuck with Russia-based agencies like Leo Burnett Moscow for its advertising needs (a Burnett campaign won two awards at Cannes this year), wanted to expand and go with an overseas shop in order to win greater market share as more and more Russians travel for both business and pleasure.

W+K–which also serves as AOR for Delta–beat three other agencies on the pitch.

Some odd S7 ads after the jump.

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W+K Portland Declares Kevin Durant ‘The Baddest’ for Nike

“I don’t want to talk about who’s the best. I want to talk about who’s the baddest,” says Dick Gregory, while chilling at a basketball court at the beginning of W+K Portland’s new spot for Nike, “The Baddest.”

After listing some historical candidates for “the baddest,” such as Connie Hawkins, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Spencer Haywood, and David Thompson, the spot goes on to make a case for Kevin Durant as “the baddest” right now, through video footage and a variety of testimonials. The well-edited 60-second spot also spends some time explaining what the title of “the baddest” means, with comparisons including “bad like a good Thanksgiving meal,” “bad like money” and “bad like black coffee.” It all makes for a fun, very watchable spot, regardless of whether or not you agree with Nike and W+K’s  choice for the title of “the baddest.” Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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W+K São Paulo, Nike Remind Brazil ‘Tomorrow Starts Now’

W+K São Paulo has a new spot for Nike entitled “Tomorrow Starts Now,” reminding Brazilians who have just had their hearts broken by the World Cup that they still have the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics to look forward to.

The well-produced 60-second spot, created in conjunction with PBA Cinema/Produtora Associados and director Nico Perez Veiga seeks to inspire with a montage of Brazilian athletes training and competing at their respective sports. While the inclusion of indoor soccer may poor a little salt in some still fresh wounds, the larger message is to forget the past and move forward. The dialogue and voiceover free spot relies entirely on its soundtrack and footage to get its message across, ending with the “Tomorrow Starts Now” tagline, which serves as both an inspiration for a nation in need of some cheering up and a more general Nike-style rallying call. Stick around for credits after the jump. (more…)

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Social Ranking Site Creates a New Battleground for Agency Egos

Does Ogilvy & Mather have the best online presence of any advertising agency in the world? Yes, according to a new site that ranks shops based on the size of their social audiences.

Created and maintained by Pivotstack, a tech company that creates software specifically for marketing agencies, the “Top 50 Ad Agencies” list takes into account the number of likes and followers an agency has on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as the traffic to an agency’s website, as ranked by analytics firm Alexa.

The leaderboard, so far, is a bit of a surprise.

Design consulting group Ideo is at No. 2, with Wieden + Kennedy taking the bronze. The first historically pure-play digital shop on the list is Razorfish, clocking in at sixth.

The list also includes media planning and buying agencies like Mindshare, along with public relations shops like Edelman. There’s even a holding company: MDC Partners.

The first 100 agencies were drawn from other lists of top shops and the personal knowledge of Pivotstack staff, although the site includes a callout inviting agencies to contact Pivotstack to be added.

Some digital brand names, like AKQA and Huge, are notably absent from the list. But the current version is just a first draft that “might not have hit some of the bigger ones,” Michael Koehler, director of sales and marketing at Pivotstack, tells AdFreak. “It’s nothing personal against them, and they’ll probably be added in the next few months.”

The social media numbers for each agency are currently entered manually, but Pivotstack also hopes to automate the update process in coming months. (For example, Ogilvy’s Facebook score on the list is currently only 205,000, whereas its Facebook page has grown to 215,000 likes).

The website bills the list as a “fun project” aimed at measuring how well an agency is doing at managing its online presence, hinting how that might speak to their ability to manage a client’s. It’s also—perhaps moreso—a clever way for the company to draw attention to itself among its target customers. (It rarely hurts to appeal to vanity or envy in the advertising business).

What about the age-old “cobbler’s shoes” argument that agencies might be neglecting their own presences in favor of servicing their clients? Koehler says an agency’s online presence is “just a reflection of how well a shop is run” and demonstrates one facet of their abilities. “By no means,” he says, “is this supposed to be the definitive list of best agencies in the world.”

Via Design Taxi.

 



Nike Boosts Brazil's Morale After World Cup by Looking Ahead to the Olympics

Nike doesn’t want Brazil to linger on its loss in the World Cup. Instead, the brand’s new ad aimed is aimed at pumping up the passionate nation of sports fans for their next global event: the 2016 Olympics.

“Tomorrow Starts Now” is a beautiful tribute to the outstanding athleticism of a country whose chances at glory were abruptly and embarrassingly snuffed out by a 1-7 World Cup loss to Germany.

But instead of trying to tend the wounds of Brazil’s futebol fan base, Nike is instead looking ahead to the many events where the country is expected to do well when the world returns to Rio de Janeiro’s for the next Summer Games.

The spot from Wieden + Kennedy São Paulo is a solid minute packed with diverse talent like track athlete Ana Claudia Lemos, beach volleyball siblings Clara and Carol Salgado, basketball players Leandrinho and Anderson Varejão, and Yane Marquez, a bronze medalist in the modern pentathlon at the London Olympics.

As usual, Nike is on top of its game, finding those perfect moments that celebrate the unparalleled power of the world’s best athletes. It’s also a moving reminder that the soul of sport lies not in winning, but in the passion it takes to keep going after a defeat. You can make it, Brazil. You can get past this.



Doogie Howser (Almost) Drinks Heineken Light for W+K

From a kid in scrubs to a man with an angry inch, Neil Patrick Harris is quite possibly our leading example of a Renaissance Dude. The star may now add “drinking beer” to his illustrious resume along with acting, singing, cooking and talking to Smurfs.

Well, sort of…

According to The New York Times and Stuart Elliott, NPH (as the cool kids call him) will help promote Heineken Light in a humorous campaign created by Wieden + Kennedy that includes television and online spots and a microsite: besttastinglight.com.

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Sean Astin Is Back (Again) as Rudy in ESPN's Excellent College Playoff Promo

A college championship that’s both national and rational has long been the dream of American football fans. In fact, Rudy dreamed up the solution 40 years ago, according to this fun bit of alternate history from ESPN.

Sean Astin reprises his 1993 role as Notre Dame’s plucky 1970s walk-on Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger in an ad created by Wieden + Kennedy New York to highlight ESPN’s coverage of the College Football Playoff system debuting in the 2014-15 season. For now, the sports network is mostly focused on just helping casual fans make sense of how the whole thing will work. 

Oddly enough, this is the second time Astin has returned to playing Rudy in 2014. His cameo was definitely the highlight of CarMax’s “Slow Clap” Super Bowl ad.

We asked Wieden + Kennedy New York if this second Rudy reprisal was just a coincidence, and a spokesperson sent along this statement:

“Our campaign is all about fans’ excitement for the inaugural college football playoff season. Rudy is not only one of the biggest icons of college football, but he’s also one of the sport’s biggest fans. His passion for the game is representative of the passion of all college football fans,” the statement said.

“So we thought he should usher in this new and exciting era. The fact that Sean Astin was recently in another spot this year was only brought to our attention after the idea was concepted.”

The real question, of course, is which brand will talk him into re-enacting a rousing Goonies monologue. Down here it’s our time. It’s our time down here.