Creative Inspiration: Old Spice Interactive Digital Game

An interactive video game released a week ago as part of the "Believe in your Smelf" campaign features a retired NBA star Dikembe Mutombo, who plays the protagonist charged with a daunting task by a talking bear named Dear Science. Dikembe has to save the world from fulfilling the Mayan apocalyptic prophecy, as the viral video Gangnam Style has caused distractions to the American youth who are now too busy to dance to cast a vote... Dear Science fears that this will lead to a cataclysmic end, and as such convinces Dikembe to strap on an Old Spice jet pack to save the human species from doom.

The game reveals challenges each week in an 80s computerized bit-world where Old Spice deodorant cans feature as the central antidote to world problems.

Link: www.oldspicesavestheworld.com 

More after the jump.

^Reference to Gangnam Style.
 
This is a great brand product that amalgamates popular culture in a comedic, off-kilter manner adhering closely to W+K's tone for Old Spice. It is quirky, funny and relevant to the the manner in which the American youth of today employ irony as a lens to navigating their daily lives. It is also an uncannily-timed response to an article by NYtimes opinionator Christy Wampole that laments at this particular youth culture that seemingly hides behind this shroud of irony. The writer of this post believes that irony is not merely a means of escapism, but is a multi-layered and rich response to understanding the world. Being earnestly serious about a matter could sometimes preclude other perspectives and bind a person, or a brand for that matter, to a singular voice. Irony empowers by providing various outlets to expression.

 
^Gaming level provides a social commentary to the ills of America packed with a remix soundtrack of Gangnam Style.

By channeling an incredibly self-conscious brand identity for Old Spice, W+K has created an incredibly fecund environment that holds multiple voices. This capacity for multiple voices then translates into multiple creative and tactical strategies that grow and interact with each other to build one brand. 

With this placement of Old Spice as a product of irony, the deodorant has now become synonymous with the language of the youth today. To speak to your audience you must become one of them, and this latest digital campaign does just that.