Hands down one of my favorite TV commercials in recent memory has to be the Old Spice “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign starring @IsaiahMustafa.  You probably know it better as the “I’m on a Horse” ad.  Not only did the campaign take home multiple awards at Cannes this year, but it truly crossed over to pop culture (my favorite is “I’m on a cake”).

Now the Old Spice team has dialed it up through a stellar social media campaign that takes engagement to a whole new level.  Lots of brands have used Twitter as a way to have a dialogue with consumers.  But in what I think is a first, Old Spice is actually doing a YouTube video response to people who mention the Old Spice campaign on Twitter.  Even better, the video responses actually have Isaiah Mustafa responding in character in the video.  So far celebs like @TheEllenShow, @ApoloOhno and @KevinRose have been lucky enough to receive responses.    My personal favorite has to be the response to @TheEllenShow [embedded video below]

Old Spice Responds to @TheEllenShow

Disclaimer – I work at P&G, which owns the Old Spice brand.  But it is still a really cool digital marketing campaign.

An interesting trend has been cropping up over the past few years as marketers have begun to pay an increasing attention to dads as a target consumer.  It is a trend that has merit thanks in part to a changing consumer.  As Nielsen pointed out in a study last year:

the traditional roles of men and women are being redefined to better reflect today’s social norms. Today’s American households are looking less like Donna Reed—the paradigm for the ideal 1950’s family—and more like Mr. Mom.

This same Nielsen study also showed that “almost one-third of men are now the principal shoppers in the household.”  Not only are men carrying more of the responsibility for shopping, they are also spending more on these trips.  Case in point, in just the past five years, men have increased the average dollar basket size (ie amount they spent) by 56% on grocery trips.

“Daddy Like”

At the forefront of marketing to this changing consumer are brands like Toyota and Klondike.

Toyota for instance sent the tone with their latest campaign for the Sienna Minivan.  Under the tagline of “Daddy Likes”, the campaign features two parents who express their awesomeness through their Sienna.  Probably the most memorable part of the campaign is the “Swagger Wagon” music video, which has received over 3MM views on YouTube in just its first month.  Klondike on the hand just recently launched their “Everyman Challenges.” To kick off the campaign, the brand is using Adam Carolla in a very Dad like video called “Pack the Car.”

And finally while Mommy Bloggers have gotten all the love over the years, it looks like Dads will finally have their turn at the inaugural Modern Media Man Summit in September.  Given the advisory board includes folks like Jason Falls, Clay Nichols and David Armano, I have high hopes that this new conference will only continue to grow the attention behind the rising importance of Dads.

Man of the House

With this very trend in mind, P&G Productions last week launched Man of the House.   Created in partnership with the folks at Barefoot Proximity, Man of the House has been one of my favorite projects over the past few months.   So what is it?  Well in the words of our editor, “Man of the House is the real man’s magazine, a guide for the jack of all trades trying to be better – at work and at home, as a father and as a husband.”  It is also a site that we have created with a ton of great partners including Share This, Associated Content, Get Satisfaction, Six Apart and countless others.

Like everything on the Web, Man of the House is a constant work in progress so I would love to hear your feedback… both on the site, as well as our  Facebook Fan Page and Twitter Feed.  I am pretty excited about how the property has turned out and where it is going over the next few months, especially as more brands recognize the potential for Dads as a marketing target.

One of the great properties that I get to work on at P&G Productions is the People’s Choice Awards.  In it’s 36th year, I think the 2010 show might just be one of the most exciting ones yet.  Yeah I am biased but we have announced Mark Burnett as our Executive Producer, moved the show to the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles and formed a pretty cool alliance with MySpace.  Those are some cool changes.

And with all that, we have also made it even easier to cast your vote for this year’s winners with voting on both PeoplesChoice.com and on MySpace.  So have you voted yet? [end commercial message]

Following up on my post about my new role at P&G, the Cincinnati Enquirer had a great story in Sunday’s paper about our goals with Digital Content and moving the Soap Opera genre online.  As the story states:

The Webisode [A Parent is Born] is the latest example of how P&G, the inventor of the daytime drama, has moved beyond the soap opera and into the digital world, but with the same purpose it had when it launched the “Ma Perkins” radio serial in 1933: to create an interested audience it can use to build loyalty to its brands… Just as it did with the soaps, P&G is creating places where it can gather a big audience, with the goal of building goodwill toward brands such as Pampers diapers, Iams dog food, Febreze fabric freshener and Dawn dish soap.

To read the full story, visit the Cincinnati Enquier’s site here.

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

Without a doubt, I am going to look back on September 2009 as a month of lots of great change in my life.  In fact, two big milestones happened last month that I wanted to share…one personal and one business.

First on the personal side of things, I had the amazing fortune to have Cindy Hickerson take my hand in marriage on September 12, 2009.  As it is meant to be, the night was one of the best in my life as we shared it with our family and friends.  And the whole experience had the perfect conclusion as the new Mrs Knox and I spent the week in sunny Key West, FL on our honeymoon.

Now as for the business side, there are changes on that end as well.  When I returned from my honeymoon, I actually started a new role at P&G as I moved over to become Brand Manager, Innovation & Design for Procter & Gamble Productions (PGP).  P&G Productions is a fascinating part of our company, charged with developing original content and entertainment to create powerful emotional relationships with our consumers.  This is the group responsible for inventing Soap Operas in the 1950’s, running the People’s Choice Awards for the past 35 years and creating multi-platform content such Petside.com.  In this new role, I will be applying my digital background to help P&G Productions to find the next generation of content,  partnerships and entertainment to connect our brands with consumers.

So needless to say, September was a busy month filled with exciting changes.  And both are changes that make me even more excited for the days, months and years to come.