Real Lesson From The Old Spice Campaign… Cajones!
I put the Old Spice campaign at the top of my “man, I wish I worked on that” list. I recently re-tweeted an article from Mashable.com about the lessons learned from the über-popular campaign. You can see the original piece here. If you are not familiar with the Old Spice spots, you have likely just awoken from a coma or spent quite a bit of time in a secluded cabin reading your old issues of ‘Cat Fancy’. It’s kind of popular. The Mashable author, Brenna Ehrlich, cites four lessons that marketers can learn from the campaign and it’s imitators, but in my opinion she failed to mention the biggest. If you are creating humor advertising you need some cajones. Onions. Big brass ones, baby.
Humor is inherently risky and humor ads so often fall prey to the meek. They get watered down, neutered for fear of someone, somewhere finding the work ‘offensive’ or ‘stupid’. I’ve seen it dozens of times. Truly unique, funny ideas tossed aside for a ‘safer’ option. Just one little problem…’safer’ is rarely funnier (or more memorable).
Of course all humor advertising does not have to be ‘risky’ or ‘out there’. You have to do what is appropriate for your brand. However, it does seem that those ‘risky’ types of spots have more viral appeal. Kudos to Weiden + Kennedy and Procter and Gable for having the courage and talent to create such great work.