Mr. W

This is one of the best commercials I have ever seen. I think it's brilliant and so well cast. I don't want to spoil it, so let's just watch.

Right?! That was great. You probably need to watch it a second time.

The spot was created by German based agency, Nordpol Hamburg and won many many awards. 

Old Spice: Mr. Wolfdog

It looks like W+K has done it again. In 2010 Wieden & Kennedy redesigned the face of Old Spice when they launched the "Smell like a man, man" campaign. The over the top clever writing and originality of the campaign was an Internet sensation and garnered numerous awards. Many copycat advertisements shortly followed from all walks of advertising. As the campaign with Isaiah Mustafa was starting to get a little tiresome, Old Spice has now launched their Wild Collection with a fresh new spokesman.

Old spice has a new marketing chief, Mr. Wolfdog. Meet Mr. Wolfdog.

Highly skilled in all things marketing, Mr. Wolfdog is already doing wonders for Old Spice with his delectably tacky and wonderfully bad marketing skills.

Mr. Wolfdog has his own tumblr site, www.mrwolfdog.com, in which he boasts about his latest achievements and mountains of success. For example, the creation of a Pinterest page which features items of interest to Mr. Wolfdog and Old Spice.

A downloadable album with inspirational business jamz.

And websites such as www.worldsbiggestchart.com which demonstrates Old Spice's projected sales for the year in a convincingly gigantic format.

Amassed with animated GIF's that appear to be from the 1990's of money falling, SIMs like avatars running in place, and marketing jargon popping out at you, the site really is one to behold. There is so much goodness in its badness. I very much enjoy the 10 or so links to oldspice.com that line the side of the page.

Some of Mr. Wolfdog's banner ads for Old Spice:

And a long string of videos with tips and tricks from the CMO genius.

How to give constructive criticism:

How to operate computers:

How to give raises:

Basically Weiden is embracing everything that is bad and tacky about the marketing world and creating a hilarious parody of it. Really quite brilliant. Not to mention Mr. Wolfdog is a wildly hilarious and loveable creature right down to his voice translator and gold watch.

Benny Gets a Facelift: New Oregon State Logo

Oregon State University, to which I am an alumni, recently partnered with Nike's Graphic Identity Group in the recent revamp of the Oregon State logo and iconic mascot Benny the Beaver.

The school , established in 1868, has seen a few evolutions of their identity. The days of old used this friendly critter (1951-1999):

In 2000 the logo was redesigned to what is often referred to as "the angry beaver". Although really I think he looks a little confused and frightened. But sure, let's call it angry.

 

Accompanying the angry beaver was an interlocking OS. Dropping the U in what I imagine was a strategy to separate the school from other large school's going by OSU, particularly Oklahoma State University who coincidentally has the exact same colors as well. The OSU of the midwest. Or south. Or whatever Oklahoma associates itself with.

 

Which brings us to the new logo. The sleek beaver? The fast beaver? The slightly terrifying beaver? While I do like this logo and think it is a definite improvement over its predecessor, there is one thing that bothers me every gosh darn time I look at it. And that is what I imagine to be his ear. To me it looks awkward and out of place. Like it was an afterthought. "Hey, should we put an ear on this thing?" Followed by what I imagine to be a pin the tail on the donkey type effort. So maybe I'm exaggerating a little, it's not so bad. It has apparently grown on me in the time it has taken me to gripe about it in this paragraph, so I digress.

And a new typographic treatment of which I am a big fan. The script resembles that of the old angry beaver logo, but is sexier x1,000.

The new logo and type are also accompanied by brand new snazzy uniforms.

Pretty sharp. Hopefully the new sleek look will help Oregon State Athletics to attract new recruits and build their brand image to be comparable to that of our neighbors down south.


Thanks papa Phil and the Nike Graphic Identity team!