Old Spice: On a Horse, Backwards [Video]

Old Spice commercial still.

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Hello, ladies. Look at your blog. Now back to me. Now back to your blog. Now back to me.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, go watch these two short videos right now (or at least before your weekend BBQs):

 

There are 87+ (!!) more surreal, personalized video responses produced in two days by the Old Spice marketing mandarins in real-time response to Twitter questions posed to Old Spice guy. Today my RSS reader overfloweth with serious, thought-provoking analysis of this short, playful “video popcorn” use of social media. My big takeaway from Mashable, The Atlantic, Snark Market, and Boing Boing: Can you imagine if the Red Cross or PETA emulated this style of campaign? Why leave dadaist social media humor—especially dadaist social media humor that successfully sells ideas—to the makers of deodorant?

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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