The Old Spice Man
Created
So much for North American workplace productivity going back to normal after the World Cup. As if to prove that summer really is the silly season, Procter & Gamble's Old Spice just about brought down the Internet this week with a two-day campaign that felt like a watershed moment in the history of social media. Leveraging the continuing popularity of Old Spice Man, the too-cool betowelled spokesman known as The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (if only your man would stop using lady-scented body wash), the brand's Portland, Ore., agency Wieden + Kennedy brought together actor Isaiah Mustafa with a team of writers and interactive whizzes to pump out a series of personalized short videos in real-time response to questions posted to sites such as Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook.
Some videos - such as the ones intended for Ellen DeGeneres, Demi Moore, Entertainment Weekly and George Stephanopoulos - were cunning appeals for traffic, but the majority were directed to regular people (including a Montreal fellow who tweets as "MindOfChester") clearly thrilled to be noticed. It was like a moment out of Woody Allen's charming comedy The Purple Rose of Cairo, in which Jeff Daniels's movie star steps off the screen to run away with a Depression-era housewife.
The stream-of-consciousness scripting - ranging from the taming of wildebeests to advice for Barack Obama's next State of the Union address - enhanced the surreal nature of the project. And a back-and-forth with Alyssa Milano elicited its own odd comic thrill. Some videos were posted in response to questions that had been asked less than 30 minutes earlier. One tweeter even managed to have Old Spice Man propose to the man's girlfriend - and, while he later wrote, "She said yes!" we wonder if the lucky lady won't always subconsciously be comparing her future husband with the hunky guy in a towel who actually made the offer.
By the time Mr. Mustafa and the gang wrapped it up at midnight Wednesday with a valedictorian message filled with gold medals, a chain saw and a silverfish hand catch, they had made more than 180 videos, attracting millions of views and tens of thousands of new Facebook fans and Twitter followers. And now we can all get back to work. What a shame.
Noted
If you believe the claims of some food marketers these days, their products can protect you and your kids from just about any disease. Too bad they can't protect the marketers from the wrath of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. This week, the FTC slapped Nestlé's wrists for what it deemed exaggerated health claims for the company's Boost Kid Essentials drink.
The drink's packaging, advertising and website noted the straw contained pro-biotics, which it claimed could help prevent colds and diarrhea, and help keep kids from missing school because of illness. But the commission found that Nestlé had no information to support any of its health-related claims.
In a statement, Nestlé said the decision "provides clarity regarding new advertising standards applicable to health benefit claims for Boost Kid Essentials and similar products." And Nestlé agreed to stop making any of the contentious claims for the children's Boost drink, or similar ones for any of its products unless it has scientific evidence to back them up.
The decision suggests the FTC may be growing more active in its enforcement, particularly on claims in the "functional foods" category. Last year on this page we covered the flaps over Kellogg being forced to drop its claim that Rice Krispies and Cocoa Krispies could help boost immunity, and the cereal-maker's suggestion that Frosted Mini-Wheats could help improve kids' attentiveness.
Forget Mini-Wheats. If you want to improve the attentiveness of marketers, have the FTC give them a call. We're pretty sure they're listening now.
Simon Houpt