You know what? The people at Old Spice need to win an award. Or a bunch of awards because I have never, in my years on the internet, seen anything quite as brilliant as this (and I’ve seen some brilliant things from the sidelines).
I talked about Old Spice in the past when Bruce Campbell appeared in a couple of ads (not to mention NPH and this guy) that were brilliantly awesome. That sort of put my grandfather’s scent on the map for me as something that was picking up steam after years of being relegated to the top shelf of my favourite grocery store.
Then a few months ago a few new ads appeared featuring the very handsome Isaiah Mustafa. They were funny, memorable and marked the brand as having completely re-invented themselves. With a flurry of new scents and a hip new spokesperson who also happened to be catering to the female demographic (who often purchases deodorant and body wash for their boyfriends/husbands - there's a reason hubby wears Old Spice...), the brand was back and kicking.
And then today, they outdid themselves. The Old Spice twitter feed (@oldspice) is a flurry with personalized YouTube videos featuring the sexy man himself spewing words of awesomeness. Want to make your brand THE talk of the internet? This is definitely the way to go about it.
They videos are hysterical and I’ve spent the better part of the last hour lost in words and images of a shirtless Isaiah. Life could be a lot worse.
Mashable has a great overview of the campaign well worth a read but You're better off just heading over to YouTube and taking in the awesomeness for yourself. There isn't a bad one in the bunch so just take your pick.
I don't consider myself too much of a sap but there are some combinations that always get a tear out of me. Usually it's some romantic thing that manages to pull at my heart strings (this happens more often that I care to admit) but sometimes, it comes unexpectedly.
Case in point, this commercial for Tim Hortons which started airing before the Olympics kicked off last week. It features Canadian Hockey Icon Sidney Crosby (known to many as Sid the Kid). It made me shed a tear the fist time I saw it and it still pulls at my heart string now even though I've seen it hundreds of times.
Warning: you may want to have the kleenex handy just in case.
It was quite the weekend! Not only was the weather fantastic but it was a weekend full of first times.
Colleen (AKA Mary Ostler) invited Dale and I out to a local SCA event and since I'd always wanted to go but never had the opportunity to check out the SCA in a more "up close and personal" sort of way, I tagged along (not to mention it gave me a good excuse to wear my fabulous dress from a few years ago - a dress which I slaved over and have only worn twice - three times now!).
I had to leave before the archery really kicked off but huge thanks to Colleen for the invite. I had a great time and the costuming bug has pricked me again. I have a few ideas for my next project which I'll have to start researching.
I only made it out to Saturday's part of the event but there was much more action on Sunday, including the successful applicants being awarded. Lionsgater has some great photos of the entire weekend which I urge you to check out. Also, big kudos to Colleen who managed to snap the single photo there is to prove I was in costume. We planned on doing a mini photo shoot to show off my craftsmanship but sadly, I had a minor problem with the belt of my dress and spend the last hour or so of the event with an incomplete costume. I will have to fix the darned thing and have the photo shoot at some point in the near future but here we go:
Photo by the wonderful Colleen
I left the event early because hubby had made plans with some friends for dinner. Sadly, while I was getting ready for us to go out we received a call from the friends in question cancelling. I was very upset that I had to leave the SCA event only to have our evening ruined so hubby made it up to me by taking me, for the first time ever, for White Spot carhop. It was an awesome experience though a little more difficult in our car considering that the windows on the Charger are up higher than on most cars but still, it was fun and much less messy than I expected.
As we were driving away trying to figure out what else to do, I suggested the drive-in and hubby, perhaps still feeling bad about the dinner thing, agreed so we drove out to Surrey to take in a night of movies at the Lower Mainland's last drive-in.
Located at 260th Street and Fraser Highway, the Twilight Drive-In has it all: massive screen, great prices ($12 per person for 3 films), awesome concession stand and fabulous classic intermission commercials. Admittedly, hubby and I weren't prepared (no blanket or pillows) but heck, it was still awesome and now I know what to expect for our next trip out there and yes, we're definitely making another trip.
We caught "G.I. Joe" which I had already seen (so I napped through a good chunk of it) and "Orphan" which I really enjoyed. We decided to skip the third movie which happened to be "Terminator Salvation". It was loads of fun and I can't wait to do it again - probably in two week's time!
And as a bonus, I found the intermission reel they show between movies. Hubby explained that the honking when the hotdog jumps into the bun is tradition. Good to know some things will live on for ever.
It was a fun filled weekend of first and I managed to use some of Sunday to recuperate but I'm still feeling a little tired from all the excitement!
Very rarely do I hear an ad on the radio that makes me search out the TV spots but that's exactly what's happened with this most recent Nation Wide Campaign from Burger King.
It's called Whopper Freakout and it's a viral marketing campaign put together by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Essentially, they removed the Whopper from the menu of a Minneapolis Burger King for one day and taped the entire thing. It sounds much more fun than what it really is, for the most part the reactions are not all that funny but there are a few good ones. In keeping with the viral nature of the videos, all the clips are available to embed and for the sake of it, I'll add the "Documentary" clip below because it has some of the better reactions.
What I've found really funny is the take offs on the clips, particularly this one which had me laughing pretty hysterically. Warning: This clip is probably NSFW. There's a fair bit of swearing involved...right off the top.
Looks like the campaign is successful; they've got people talking about Burger King and riffing on the commercials.
The commercial fights between Pepsi and Coke continues. I've always been a bigger fan of Pepsi the drink but Coke's commercials always seemed to be on the cutting edge until a few years ago when Pepsi too a strong hold with their Generation Next commercials. I love that branding and the ads that came with but I haven't been really blown away by any of their commercials lately...until recently.
I'm used to seeing the shortened 30 second spot on TV but here's the full Superbowl ad for Diet Pepsi Max. Makes me smile every time:
My mom is not computer friendly. While my dad makes the effort to read the news daily, I'm pretty sure mom has no concept of how to even turn the computer on.
Since hubby is on his road trip and I'm home alone, I went up to spend some time with her and cruise YouTube for Portuguese language content - that always makes her smile. An hour later, and gosh knows how many hundreds of clicks later, we do a search for something or other that leads me to stumble on what is likely the greatest commercial. EVER. Mom has informed me that it was in heavy rotation during the World Cup tournament but this is the first time I've ever seen it and it's BRILLIANT. But don't take my word for it. Check out Portugal vs. Brazil:
And of course, this IS YouTube we're talking about here so in come the related videos that will keep you busy for months but amongst much of the drek, I did find one of my favourite commercials from a while back. I call it, Elimination Chamber (trademarked, but not by me):
I was going to say that I'd just seen the best commercial ever but then I remembered that I recently saw another one which was *really* good. So here we go, to great commercials.
On a wicked side note, I went to see the brilliant No Country for Old Men last week and they played that gorilla commercial. BRILLIANT!
