When Dan Wieden recruited me to Wieden+Kennedy, I had no idea it would become one of the wildest, most culture-shifting stretches of my career.
I was hired to oversee non-traditional and innovation work across the agency, and the first brand I jumped into was Old Spice. At the time, P&G was considering shuttering it, so we had permission to take some wild swings.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime team and moment. The work we made together rewrote the rules of marketing on a weekly basis, won several thousand pounds of awards, and turned a dying brand into a cultural phenomenon.
SCOPE: ADVERTISING / GAMING / DIGITAL / SOCIAL / LIVE EXPERIENCES / TELEVISION / FILM / WOLVES
Muscle Music was the first thing Terry Crews and I ever worked on together.
Yes, we really wired him into every instrument in the room. And yes, he nailed a perfect take in the first hour.
Yes, it was the most fun I’ve ever had at work.
Yes, it led to a decades-long creative partnership I’m still proud of.
And yes, it sold a lot of deodorant.
To launch the Old Spice Wild Collection, we hired a real wolfdog to be the new CMO.
He took over every channel, interviewed interns on Google Hangouts, gave terrible business advice, dropped a motivational album, played Xbox with kids, did strangers’ homework, demanded meat sacks for his staff, and resigned in disgrace after just a week.
Bad dog. Great campaign.
Since the dawn of the internet, people have used it to buy really stupid things (Axe body spray, for example).
So we built fake sites selling even stupider stuff, like illegal neck workout machines and cologne with protein.
But each one was a trap. A trojan horse for the Old Spice Guy to swoop in and show you how stupid you almost were.
We made this video game for Old Spice that literally saved the world.
We’d all be dead if it weren’t for Old Spice and Dikembe.
You’re welcome.