It has been said that 90% of advertising is HORSESH*T while 10% of advertising is GOOD. I decided to put this to the test for one of my favorite campaigns, the new K-Swiss and Kenny Powers YouTube spots. Tennis shoe company K-Swiss teamed up with 72andSunny to help bring their brand back to life. They did so by bringing Danny McBride on-board as his hit character Kenny Powers from the HBO series Eastbound and Down. Throughout 18 spots Kenny Powers was designated the new spokesperson for K-Swiss and it couldn't have gone better.
YouTube is a platform that puts the audience in the driver seat to rate videos, I call it "people power." My method was simple; watch the spots and jot down number of views, likes and dislikes. After collecting the numbers I would break them into ratios to see if it fell in the horsesh*t or the good. My results were greater than I expected.
Total Number of Views (18 videos) - 4,327,525
Likes: 12,832 (98% positive)
Dislikes: 253 (2% negative)
Idea-Book Breakdown
Out of all the 13,085 ratings, 98% of them were liked. A mere 2% had a negative reaction. If it was my campaign, I'd take that any day. The way I see it, it transcended the GOOD (10%) into the GREAT (2%). These weren't rankings from a panel of judges, these were the authentic feelings of the people the spots were intended for. The team at 72andSunny, including former Duck Matt Heath, did a hell of a job with these ads. They brought K-Swiss out of the retirement homes and hospitals and gave them back to the people. That's what I call "Lubing the Deals."
I got a last minute email a few days back that announced a guest speaker was in town to talk about his background in advertising. Come to find out this former Duck alumni happened to work at 72andSunny before getting picked up as a writer for HBO's hit series Eastbound and Down, in just four short years. Oh yeah, he almost got arrested by the FBI for baby trafficking (fake Craigslist ad gone wrong, no worries no babies were hurt in the making of it). I had to go see him. Only about 7 of us showed up, the other 20,000+ here at the University of Oregon really missed out.
The speakers name is Matt Heath, and he is a legend. His message was simply go out, have fun and make sh*t. The theme he kept coming back to about his creative process was "what is the dumbest way I can solve this problem that will make people laugh?" Sure enough, Matt made people laugh, a lot of people. See his blog at http://mattheath.typepad.com/feeding_friendsy.
Matt was always messing around while going through school and this paid off for him, big time. He and another buddy created a stop motion video of a couple yoked out Ken type dolls. It spread around the ad industry and sure enough jobs came calling. Shortly after joining 72andSunny, K-Swiss knocked down 72's door with one goal in mind - "innovate or die." 72andSunny won the account and Matt was to be an integral part of it. Matt and the rest of the creatives were challenged with bring K-Swiss back to life. His strategy? Break off the Nike path of superstar athlete spokespersons and bring on the most out of shape, lazy and misogynistic professional athlete known to man; HBO's character Kenny Powers, played by Danny McBride. After a lot of negotiation and planning with HBO, K-Swiss and Danny McBride himself, the campaign was approved and they hit the ground running.
Matts writing is reflected in all the YouTube ads they produced. They are hilarious and fitting of the Kenny Powers mantra. It helped re-establish K-Swiss as a brand; a brand that doesn't just attract old fuddy-duddies anymore. Matt's work has plenty of recognition but I felt the need to share it anyway. K-Swiss needed innovation and Matt gave it to them. He did so well in fact that he was brought on to help write on the HBO show, Eastbound and Down. Without Matt's pen, Danny wouldn't be Kenny.
Recently this blog has been full of text, links and a few visuals. Not enough visuals. Stop reading for a second and take in these ads that are worth the view. [Agencies behind the brilliance in parentheses]
And no, I swear, this blog is not dedicated to alcohol. Alcohol is just dedicated to advertising.
Johnny Walker's Ad: "Keep Walking Brazil"
(Neogama BBH)
Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey Ad: "King Bee"
(Arnold, Boston)
Chrysler's 300 Super Bowl Ad
(Wieden+Kennedy)
