JC Penney's 'Doghouse' Returns
Last Year's Massive Holiday Viral Is Back, and Shorter
Regardless of whether the ad critics liked JC Penney's "Beware of the Doghouse" viral video last year, the masses did.
The idea behind the film was that men who gave their wives lame holiday gifts, such as vacuum cleaners, would be dropped down a rabbit hole called the doghouse to be judged by a jury of scathing, scorned wives. The campaign racked up millions of views in its quest to promote JC Penney's jewelry department -- jewelry, of course, being the ticket out of the doghouse.
This year, it's "Return of the Doghouse." JC Penney again tapped with Saatchi & Saatchi for the video creative, which is blessedly down from four minutes and 45 seconds to two minutes and 55 seconds, and North Kingdom for the website, where, per a JC Penney statement, visitors can "build a case against their bad gift giver filled with written statements and imported photos, videos and witness testimony as evidence of the bad gift-giving. Each case file will be compiled into a trial movie and given its own web address, allowing users to share (can be e-mailed or posted to MySpace and Facebook) the link with friends." Razorfish handled online media buying and planning.
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It's like Weekend at Bernies II.
It was dead the first time.
Great job at Saatchi for a sequel that might be as good as the original. A feat rarely accomplished. In cinema: Godfather II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Evil Dead II.
This ad creative nailed it, IMHO.
F.S. - If you actually SAW Weekend at Bernies II, God help you. But that is not a accurate comparison. I'm trying to think of a better analogy...maybe City Slickers.
Now let's see how "viral" this gets. I will start by posting it on Facebook.
Well done.
Once again we're subjected to stereotypically stupid, insensitive married men who do all manner of acts that land them in "the dog house". What strikes me about all this is not the idea of going to JC Penny to get a "good" gift for my wife, but more so that these men are married to some pretty insecure, petty people. And JC Penny has a lazy advertising agency.
Perhaps instead of taking the creatively easy route and slipping into overdone stereotypes, maybe JC Penny could do something more important...like getting a brand identity.
-RTA
http://knpbranding.wordpress.com/