The Rise of Wanky: Here to Stay?

Recently, within a few product categories, there has been a rapid increase of the wanky ad.

First evident in TBWA’s Starburst followed by Crispin Porter Bogusky’s VW & Burger King and now with Wieden + Kennedy’s Old Spice stealing the show with their latest slew of “Smell Like A Man, Man” ads. The question is are these ads shifting pop culture or vice versa has a new generation of dry humor, evident in the target market, given way to wanky ads to grab attention? The viral pop culture success of Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man could Smell Like” proves that this advertising, whether or not sparked by the target market, is at the very least able to spread quickly when the target’s sense of humor is imbedded in it.

The question is, is this a passing fad or a method of cutting through the clutter that will continue to prove successful?

My Day of Brands

This is a recording of my interactions with various brands in a single day inspired by a similar post by Melanie Linehan on her blog, MLinsight.

I awoke. Showered with Old Spice and Every Man Jack. Prepared my clothing with Sunbeam Iron & Target ironing board. Filled my tummy with Archer Farms bread, toasted in a Michael Graves Toaster and All Natural Archer Farms Peanut Butter and washed it down with Archer Farm’s Organic Nonfat Milk. I prepared my face with Wahl trimmer & Gillete Mach 3 Turbo shaver followed by Every Man Jack, prepared my mouth with Colgate, Oral-b & Listerine, sprayed on some Old Spice and dressed in Target, Express for Men & Cole Haan.

Drove to work in my Toyota while listening to MGMT, Keane & Phoenix on my iPhone. Stopped at Starbucks for my daily Venti Misto. Got to work opened my Swiss backpack, plugged my MacBook Pro into my Mac Keyboard, Mac Display and switched on my Mac Wireless Magic Mouse. Fired up Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Mobile Me, Tweet Deck, AIM and Yahoo to connect with the world and began work on Word, Powerpoint, Adobe CS4 and Entourage.

Lunch break with Kashi meal and glass of water in a Coca-Cola glass while flipping through NOTCOT, Ads of the World and Tweet Deck. Back to work: Mobile Me, Adobe CS4, Word, Entourage. Meeting. Break for the second Starbucks Misto that I fetch in my Toyota. Work Work Work.

Break to head to coffee with a friend in my Toyota to Common Grounds for a White Chocolate Mocha. Conversation.

Drive home in my Toyota. iPhone, Bowflex, Genius List, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Mobile Me. Read The Fountinhead by Ayn Rand, check my Google Analytics and sleep.

The overall winners in my book are Target, Starbucks and Apple.

Ad of the Week: Old Spice

Smell like a man, man.

When Old Spice saw rapidly dropping profits, they knew they had to make a change and turned to Wieden + Kennedy. WK found that most people attributed the brand negatively with old men and were won over by the cool sex factor built into the competition, Axe. So what Old Spice did was tap into the factor of being a "mans man" and using a wanky, monty python like sense of humor to grab attention.

Their latest ad, meant to talk to the female buyer as well as the male user, with the line ". . .if he switched to Old Spice he could smell like he's me." The ad was perfectly planned out, art directed, written and produced to deliver a distinctive memorable brand promise that resonates with the consumer. So much so that the actor, Isaiah Mustafa, has since been inundated with friend requests on facebook and is appearing on Ellen this Friday because she became so infatuated with the ad.

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland

Art Director: Eric Kallman

Copywriter: Craig Allen

And check out how they made it in this chat with the creative minds behind the ad.