Shout Of Triumph For This Wild Pants Hunt

January 08, 2007

You want to know who loves YouTube more than anyone? Ad agencies.

At last they have a place to put ads that never got beyond the concept phase because the client would just look at them and say, "You're joking, right?"

Now the eerier and odder it is the more clients are willing to say, "Not for broadcast, but it'll get a lot of hits on the Web."

This applies not just to products but also to creatives. Everything doesn't have to connect with everyone, it just has to find the right niche. Witness the new spot for Shout Portable Wipes stain remover.

Guys are out in the woods hunting pants: white, topless pants. The hunters are wearing camo and the weapons are coffee, spaghetti sauce, ice cream, other stain-creating things. They chase the wild slacks into a trap where one guy nails them with ketchup. The pants go down. The guys high five and crow over their great trophy. Then some women from what we'll call People for the Ethical Treatment of Pants ride in, scare off the guys and comfort the poor, wounded apparel, using Shout stain remover to "heal" it before releasing it back into the wild.

The spot is strange but not without purpose. There's a link between the strangeness and the product, which is frequently missing these days. It's more than two minutes long and there's no way this gets made before YouTube and the like made distribution cheap and easy.

This "spot" might eventually be on TV but without the Web it never gets past the idea phase.


Product: Shout Portable Wipes

Marketer: S.C. Johnson, Racine, Wis.

Agency: DraftFCB, Chicago

Market: Internet (YouTube, shoutitout.com)

Key players: DraftFCB: Jonathan Richman, art director; Alex Zamiar, copywriter; John Bleeden, producer