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| after forced retirement, the Root Bear was reduced to begging |
Inside Television 511
Publication Date: 7-23-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn
This is a story about two commercial campaigns I’ve grown to love as much as many as you. The first is the A&W campaign featured the rotund manager (whose real name I could not find anywhere) and the gawky employee Ryan (played by Ryan Beil). The ads have been running for years of course, but that made me curious. What makes these commercials work?
And they have worked. The latest trade figures I could find showed A&W (Canada) opening a pretty impressive 30 restaurants a week, having shifted focus away from a declining mall business into stand-alone restaurants. In some locations they are even bringing back car hops.
This of course is a fine idea, as anyone aged 40 or above will be happy to blather your ear off in confirming. For the younger reader, car hops were almost always teenage girls who came to your car window, took your order and delivered the goods. If you are in the car, she would come back to take your tray. The advantage for shy teenage boys was obvious. You were given the opportunity to chat three times to a cute teenage girl and where else was that opportunity going to come along? I remember having a massive crush on a car hop at the Arthur Street location in or around 1976 when I was 18. Remember her smile and the Dorothy Hamill-type blonde bob like it was yesterday. I still bear the scars. Not from the crush - from the acne brought on by over-consumption of Mama Burgers and Root Beer floats.
So the current campaign plays into the same nostalgia in that the restaurant is usually quiet, the service is personal and the music is soft. The sun always shines and summer is as endless as a Beach Boys tour. The interesting edge is that even though Ryan is about as competent as a German Shepherd left in charge of wallpapering the bedroom, the manager is always right there. The customer never suffers.
The second ad campaign - brilliant ... but really not doing what it’s supposed to do. I speak, as many have before me, of Old Spice Guy. The spots are brilliant. Interestingly, the rapid-paced ultra macho clipped as a cigar delivery was done as a prank by the actor, Isaiah Mustafa. Mustafa played a little ball in his day and called his old quarterback, Jake Plummer; ex-Bronco, current Bears disaster. Plummer wasn’t home so Mustafa read the script in that exaggerated way into the answering machine. Then he thought, “Hmmmmm...”
And holy sweet Matilda - I just looked at YouTube to check how many views Old Spice Guy has had since going viral in the last two weeks. He now responds to Tweets with videos. One video - just one of them - has over 10 million views.
So that must be leading to the sweet smell of success for Old Spice, right? Ehhhhhh, not quite. According to Brandweek, one of those anaesthetically boring trade publications, sales of Old Spice have declined 7% over the 52 weeks ending June 13th. The Old Spice Guy ads have been around since the Winter Olympics. If the ads were actually tugging people towards after-shave purchases, there should have been some positive signs by mid-June.
This in turn puts Old Spice into a vicious trap. They can’t very well kill a campaign this successful; for they shall be hated - torches lit, villagers enraged. It is a fascinating conundrum and one that I cannot find a parallel to in media history. Love the ad, hate the product to the point of buying less of it.
Then again - and come on now, you were thinking it too - have you ever actually smelled Old Spice? Be seeing you.
Publication Date: 7-23-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn
This is a story about two commercial campaigns I’ve grown to love as much as many as you. The first is the A&W campaign featured the rotund manager (whose real name I could not find anywhere) and the gawky employee Ryan (played by Ryan Beil). The ads have been running for years of course, but that made me curious. What makes these commercials work?
And they have worked. The latest trade figures I could find showed A&W (Canada) opening a pretty impressive 30 restaurants a week, having shifted focus away from a declining mall business into stand-alone restaurants. In some locations they are even bringing back car hops.
This of course is a fine idea, as anyone aged 40 or above will be happy to blather your ear off in confirming. For the younger reader, car hops were almost always teenage girls who came to your car window, took your order and delivered the goods. If you are in the car, she would come back to take your tray. The advantage for shy teenage boys was obvious. You were given the opportunity to chat three times to a cute teenage girl and where else was that opportunity going to come along? I remember having a massive crush on a car hop at the Arthur Street location in or around 1976 when I was 18. Remember her smile and the Dorothy Hamill-type blonde bob like it was yesterday. I still bear the scars. Not from the crush - from the acne brought on by over-consumption of Mama Burgers and Root Beer floats.
So the current campaign plays into the same nostalgia in that the restaurant is usually quiet, the service is personal and the music is soft. The sun always shines and summer is as endless as a Beach Boys tour. The interesting edge is that even though Ryan is about as competent as a German Shepherd left in charge of wallpapering the bedroom, the manager is always right there. The customer never suffers.
The second ad campaign - brilliant ... but really not doing what it’s supposed to do. I speak, as many have before me, of Old Spice Guy. The spots are brilliant. Interestingly, the rapid-paced ultra macho clipped as a cigar delivery was done as a prank by the actor, Isaiah Mustafa. Mustafa played a little ball in his day and called his old quarterback, Jake Plummer; ex-Bronco, current Bears disaster. Plummer wasn’t home so Mustafa read the script in that exaggerated way into the answering machine. Then he thought, “Hmmmmm...”
And holy sweet Matilda - I just looked at YouTube to check how many views Old Spice Guy has had since going viral in the last two weeks. He now responds to Tweets with videos. One video - just one of them - has over 10 million views.
So that must be leading to the sweet smell of success for Old Spice, right? Ehhhhhh, not quite. According to Brandweek, one of those anaesthetically boring trade publications, sales of Old Spice have declined 7% over the 52 weeks ending June 13th. The Old Spice Guy ads have been around since the Winter Olympics. If the ads were actually tugging people towards after-shave purchases, there should have been some positive signs by mid-June.
This in turn puts Old Spice into a vicious trap. They can’t very well kill a campaign this successful; for they shall be hated - torches lit, villagers enraged. It is a fascinating conundrum and one that I cannot find a parallel to in media history. Love the ad, hate the product to the point of buying less of it.
Then again - and come on now, you were thinking it too - have you ever actually smelled Old Spice? Be seeing you.
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