It’s hard on some mothers to watch their sons go from boys to men as we see in a gloriously twisted Old Spice commercial titled “Momsong” that was created by Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, and directed by Steve Ayson of MJZ. In the spot, young men—irresistible to women thanks to Old Spice Re-Fresh Body Spray—enjoy time with the opposite sex, unaware they are being stalked by devoted moms. These frumpy moms assume bizarre “fly-on-the-wall” positions as they keep watchful eyes on their sons. The first mother is behind the door of her son’s bedroom as he leaves for a date. Next we see her outside in the park, coming out of the bushes to spy on her lad and his girlfriend who blissfully walk together in the rain.
Another mom is then seen hanging onto the rear bumper of a fast moving convertible car–with her son as the driver and a smitten girl as the passenger. The mom’s knees are in a laundry basket as the car whisks her along the road.
A change in scenery takes us indoors to a school cafeteria. One mom is kneeling to get an opportune vantage point on her son and his lass who are seated at a table in front of her. In the same cafeteria, we then see a janitor getting a look-see at another happy couple. The janitor turns his head 180 degrees and it’s revealed that the male face we saw was on the back of a mom’s head. We now see the visage of yet another melancholy mother.
Back outdoors, a male teen and his gal frolic at the beach. Unbeknownst to them, they are being closely followed by a stretched-out mom who literally slithers under and along the sand. Another mom washes ashore in order to get a better gander at her son and his girlfriend.
We later see a mom falling from the sky as she plays a violin, the instrument of choice when one is whining.
And finally we again see our first mom laid out on her back slithering from a couch in one room along the carpet to another room, eventually reaching another couch she slides up on, ending in a seated position as she continues to lament in song her son’s carnal coming of age.
All the moms are singing their tale of woe throughout the spot, bemoaning the escalating sex appeal of their little angels.
Of all the women cast as moms, only one had major acting experience. “We just wanted moms who felt real but also had some comedic character to their look and performance,” explained W+K creative director Jason Bagley.
The Mill
The mom who slides out of the couch and across the floor up into a seated position on another couch had to put up with being rigged with wires and dragged around by a stunt crew that manipulated her like a puppet. “We definitely went into this to shoot everything in-camera,” Ayson said. “[VFX house] The Mill [L.A.] guided us in making sure we could keep it in-camera. Then they helped a lot with wire removal and in particular with the sand mom as she moves through the sand, putting the real singing face of the mom onto a prosthetic cast head and shoulders that we towed through the sand.”
Bagley added, “As usual, The Mill worked themselves to death to make us all look great…We always try to shoot practical stunts as much as possible, which still involves an enormous amount of clean-up and effects. They worked a large amount of miracles for us to say the least.”
The Mill’s Tim Davies, creative director and 2D lead on the job, said, “We decided to try and shoot every gag as a live-action/in-camera sequence: good old-fashioned filmmaking and this process didn’t come without its own challenges. What made this spot significantly trickier than the norm was the fact that the moms were singing the jingle throughout the spot while performing some ridiculously complicated stunt attached to wires and rigs.”
Old Spice is renowned for its offbeat campaigns, and expectations were high for “Momsong.” Davies shared, “We had a great team working on this and we all enjoyed going the extra mile. None of us can wait to see what’s coming down the line for the next Old Spice spot!”
