Mother

What do you do if your product lacks an eye-catching design and has an old man’s name? Make up for it with nifty visuals and pretty young people in your television spots.

Mother NY’s and production company Brand New School’s “Love Thy Pits” campaign for Mitchum deodorant has, among other things, set clogs on fire and caused some to cry “ripoff” due to some similarities to recent Old Spice work. But, as this installment is one of a several new spots using the same fast-talking narration and colorful, well art-directed video graphics, Mitchum’s parent company Revlon’s attempts at attracting a younger market share must be paying off.

So, young millennial soccer mom, don’t sweat accidentally kidnapping a neighbor’s kid. Credits after the jump.

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Armpits are gross. When they sweat, they get grosser. And, if you’re a hairy dude, armpits can really be, well, the pits. They’re not exactly the kind of place you want a loved one or significant other to spend a lot of time.

This television new spot for Mitchum Advanced Control deodorant is part of Mother’s new campaign for the brand called “Love Thy Pits.” Maybe’s it’s because I have a penchant for listening to annoying pop music, but this spot immediately reminded me of Darwin Deez‘ music video for his song, “Radar Detector.” Do not click on that link if you are scared of having a trashy, nonsensical hippie get in your head for the rest of the day. What can we say about “Love Thy Pits?” Well, it looks like Mitchum is targeting young hipster professionals who are more frightened of sweating all over their dress shirts than proving their manliness. Credits after the jump.

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Leave it to Mother NY to come up with yet another quirky title for a new staffer, this one being “Traffic Controller” which translates into the more commonly known post of creative manager. That’s the role Mary King assumes now that she’s joined the Mother camp as its first ever CM. The gold-toothed agency vet launched her ad career as a project manager 25 years ago at Fallon/McElligott before serving as a creative manager at Chiat\Day NY (where she actually had two stints) and W+K Portland, then spending over four years at Ogilvy as creative talent director.

Apparently King will wear multiple hats at Mother beyond her official title according to creative director Bobby Hershfield, who says, “We are thrilled that Mary is here. Her incredible ability to play therapist, conductor, organizer, creative ally and palm reader is so needed and welcomed.”

Charlie McKittrick is basically moving down the street as the 10-year Ogilvy vet has now joined up as a strategist with Mother New York. Regarding the reason for moving, McKittrick, who will be partnering with Mother’s Phil Graham in boosting the agency’s strategy unit, offers an interesting statement, saying, “The brief to me was ‘we want Mother to have a bigger brain’ which is pretty daunting given that Mother is producing some of the most creative, interesting and diverse work in the business.  But my passion is for the breadth of what modern ‘strategy’ needs to contribute to advertising in 2011, and where better to apply that than at a place as creatively promiscuous as Mother?”

Before he signed on with Mother in order to apply his form of “modern strategy” and attempt to increase brainpower, McKittrick led the 20-person Marketing Strategy practice at Ogilvy, working on plans for clients such as IBM, Motorola, Yahoo and Six Flags. McKittrick’s most recent global assigments were for Coke Zero, UPS and, um, BP.

There’s a reason why Bobby Hershfield is all smiles judging by his headshot as the four-year Mother employee has been promoted to group creative director at the agency’s New York office. During his tenure at Mother, Hershfield has worked on accounts including J&J, Target, Sweet ‘N Low and Tanqueray. Prior to joining the Mother-ship, the creative spent two years at Ogilvy and worked on IBM and Yahoo and spent nine years at W+K before that. In a statement, his boss, Mother founding partner Paul Malmstrom, says “Bobby has been one of the fine ingredients in the Mother pancake we haven’t talked that much about. From today, we add an additional teaspoon of Hershfield, and smile.” Yeah, we get the “smile” part.

We’ve been told by reliable sources that Mother has won the global creative business for Tanqueray. If you remember, we reported back in September that parent company Diageo launched a review of its gin brand. Since late October, we’ve been hearing that the New York/London-based shop beat out incumbent W+K and at least two other agencies in the review. Mother isn’t commenting either way on Tanqueray, which Wieden had handled since 2008. From what our spies tell us, Mother’s already in the process of doing work for the brand.

Before we get any further, no, I don’t know if sugar “in the raw” is in any way healthier or better than the stuff you sprinkle in your coffee at Starbucks every morning. Really, if I had to guess, I’d assume it’s sort of like natural tobacco cigarettes versus Marlboro Reds. Yeah, it’ll still kill you in large quantities, it probably isn’t ingested as easily, but you buy it because you don’t like the idea of weird, synthetic chemicals being part of your regular diet.

Designing a campaign for a company like In the Raw must be pretty difficult. I mean, what is there to say about sugar and sweetener that hasn’t already been said? What is there to be said about your product that isn’t already in your brand name? Well, Mother found a way to take a new approach with their “It’s Only Natural Campaign,” which according to CDs Bobby Hershfield and Michael Ian Kaye incorporate “human truths and how the product and food in general play a role in daily situations.”

Yeah, it’s an awful lot of copy for one page, but ad placement in women’s fitness, entertainment and lifestyle publications should keep consumers reading, if at least for the fully functioning recipies. If you spouse leaves you, you’re baking something for a loved one, or you’re just trying to save money for one day to see how it feels, sugar and stevia extract “in the raw” will have you covered.

Credits and fuller ads after the jump.

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Dell has created its Frankenstein version of a PC/iPad/Droid hybrid and named it the Streak “pocket tablet.”

So who ya gonna call to deal with this monster? Why, Mother of course. In this spot, the agency, which we can presume has had a better relationship with the computer brand, than say, Enfatico, has created a a nice story of a man and woman trying to find each other using the tablet while the people around them are also seen using the different functions of the device during their search.

Yes, I know, another darn cell phone. It’ll never end. This one looks a tad bulky, not iPad bulky – more like an “is that a pocket tablet or are you just happy to see me” bulky. View credits after the jump.

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It seems like only yesterday that we were imbibing and walking around the barebones space of Mother’s soon-to-be new office. Well, today marks the first official day that agency staffers are taking residence in what is now known as The Mother House. To celebrate the move to their new digs, which is located in Hell’s Kitchen and not too far from Ogilvy’s mammoth quarters, Mother decided to introduce themselves to their new neighbors via the promotion of (fake) services that they offer. What services, you ask? We’re not ones to spoil all the shenanigans, just watch the clip above.

More: “UpThere: Mekanism and Mother Make Film About Beer, Hand-Painted Ads“

Mother New York welcomed a new managing director, Angelina Vieira Barocas, who hails from Six Flags of all places. Barocas spent the last four years at the amusement park company leading its biz dev efforts and strategic positioning and also developed Six Flags’ first online marketing campaign (which we can only assume is less creepy than the brand’s bald, bespectacled pitchman).

Like creative director Rob Baird before her, Barocas states, “As soon as I met the people there, I knew I was home. It had all the components of what I wanted, the right people, the right culture and incredible creativity.” Regarding her move back to the agency side, Barocas, who spent ten years toiling in account services as W+K, adds, “There are great client-side people and there are great agency people. At heart, I’m agency.”

More: “Mother New York Welcomes Eugene Fuller to the Fold”