Packaged goods advertising needs a kick in the pants. No one’s going to argue otherwise. However, I’m not sure what Unilever and WPP’s Mindshare Entertainment have wrought with this painfully derivative spot for Dove?
According to Ad Age, this Mad Men mirror for Dove is just the beginning. Unilever is planning to work six of its iconic brands–Dove, Breyers, Hellman’s, Klondike, Suave and Vaseline–into this newly poached campaign.
The vignettes feature Phil Smith and Tad Winter, a copywriter and art director working at fictional 1960s ad agency Smith Winter Mitchell, developing campaigns for the six Unilever brands. Much like Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Unilever’s fictional agency is meant to be a challenger to the hulking beasts of Madison Avenue.
Why they work there, and why this makes sense creatively, I have no idea.
