For the past month or so, a woman by the name of Susan Glenn has been popping up. First on Buzzfeed then on various message boards, a blog and even on the OnlineSlangDictionary where one of the definitions defines her as “That girl that you like so much but you never actually flirt with because you are too worried about messing it all up”
In the Facebook group Suxorz, a group that collects epic social media failures, BlogAds Founder Henry Copeland wondered whether or not this is just “a lame seeding for some movie… or just the first of some supersmart social campaign?”
Well, as revealed in this just-released video (below), Susan Glenn is, indeed, part of a marketing campaign. An Axe marketing campaign. But an Axe marketing campaign miles apart from previous efforts. A smarter campaign. An emotionally deeper campaign. And a campaign that features not some young, hot dude trying to capture all the sexy ladies on the beach but 46-year-old Kiefer Sutherland who still pines for the girl he knew many years ago in high school but who, years later, laments her and Susan never having been “a thing.”
In the spot, we are taken back in time as Sutherland envisions Susan Glenn and waxes eloquently, “Beneath my feet my own private earthquake registered an eight when Susan Glenn was near…If she approached, Susan Glenn didn’t walk, she floated…accompanied by pyrotechnique spectacles that left me feeling a foot tall. She embodied every desirable quality I’d ever wanted. In my mind, I was a peasant before a queen.”
As the ad closes, we see Sutherland in front of his bathroom mirror. He looks deeply into the mirror and says, “If I could do it again, I’d do it differently.” Which, one assumes (hopes), is a set up for a continuing saga about Susan Glenn and how, with help from Axe, of course, Kiefer will finally lands the girl he has dreamt of his entire life.
The ad taps into that powerful emotion we have all felt at one point or another in our lives when we look back and wonder what could have been; how things might have ended up if we had done things differently and with whom we might have spent the rest of our lives.
The actress who plays Susan Glenn, Jessica Cook, may soon see heer star rise as a result of this campaign if it plays out successfully.
The BBH-created campaign appears to be an effort to broaden the appeal of the Axe brand. To extend it beyond the high school crowd by tapping into nostalgic memories and the desire to recapture one’s youth. And to, perhaps, leave it’s “Axe will get you laid” legacy behind.
