“He’s a man! He’s a boy!” …and so one, ad infinitum. Wieden + Kennedy’s YouTube blurb for its latest Old Spice ad is very funny. So is the ad. The funniest jokes depend on clichés. Much is made of the cliché that mums don’t want their boys to become men and dads do in W+K Portland’s campaign for Old Spice. W+K has given last year’s Momsong for Old Spice a new lease on life by introducing Dad’s point of view.
While Mom cries about the fact that Old Spice has made her baby ‘get the girl’, Dad is rather pleased that his son will leave home, get a job and give him a whole lot of extra storage space. The new ad picks up where its predecessor left off, opening with one of the mums from the January ad still grieving as she watches her son slow dance with a girl at a high school dance.
Even more clever, W+K has enabled Old Spice to invade Axe/Lynx’s territory (boy gets girl) in time for the gift giving season. And does so in an ad that targets the gift givers – mums and dad.
Andreas Nilsson directed the ad via Biscuit Filmworks. He also directed Volvo Trucks’ Epic Split. The mum under ice is even more hilarious than Momsong’s mum lodged in sand that helped the earlier ad win Gold at the Clios and at Cannes this year. Music and words come from Bret McKenzie, one half of Flight of the Conchords’ success story.
Creative credits:
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland
Creative directors: Jason Bagley & Craig Allen
Copywriters: Jason Kreher & Nathaniel Lawlor
Art directors: Matt Sorrell & Ruth Bellotti
Executive creative directors: Susan Hoffman & Joe Staples
Head of production: Ben Grylewicz
Production company: Biscuit Filmworks
Executive producer: Colleen O’Donnell
DoP: Fredrik Backar
Editing: Mackenzie Cutler
VFX: The Mill
Music Company: Walker
Composer: Bret McKenzie
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