One of the risks people run when using comedy when the brand is pigeon holing themselves and discrediting their brand. I love to laugh as much as the next guy and actually think there is a place for comedy in branding. I recently came across a K Swiss commercial where they used a fictional washed up former Major League baseball player named Kenny Powers. The actor's name is Danny McBride and he is literally one of the funniest guys I've ever seen. I laugh every time I see him. In the series of commercials he does with a number of pro athletes he uses his crude humor to talk about the shoe and the new feature which are the "tubes".
I liked the concept and the idea. I loved watching the short videos but for the average person coming across this commercial, it may seem a little rude and not indicative of the actual product. It's hard to say why K Swiss went with Kenny Powers, he has a show that airs on HBO and is really a hard "R" rating which means that the target market is probably 18-35 year old men. The comedy is another aspect of it that boggles me. K Swiss is changing its image from "I wear my K Swiss" commercials and their urban look to more of an athletic training look. I don't really see where comedy and putting a new face on a brand that is trying to compete with the likes of Under Armour and Nike is going to fit in.
Under Armour is serious, all about the training and being elite. Nike is well, Nike and they have a new "Boom" campaign out. So to try and eat some of the table scraps with this type of campaign is a myth to me. But then again it just might work. It has to be different somehow and maybe they can survive on the demographic they're after. Just to do a litmus test... when was the last time you bought K Swiss?
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