By: Falene Nurse Category: FILM Date: 4.Aug.2014

 

If you want your ads with a creepier flavor, Steve Ayson is your go-to-guy. The commercial director from New Zealand has quickly gained a reputation for creating TV ads that people talk about months after the air date. When Old Spice’s “MomSong”  first debuted in January during the Green Bay-San Francisco NFL game, it quickly set social medial alight by becoming water-cooler fodder for weeks afterwards. Initially available exclusively online two days prior to its TV debut, Old Spice cleverly positioned the spot as yet another of their viral sensations. But there was something slightly different about the ‘feel’ of this particular ‘boys becoming men’ lament. It was funny, surreal and, well—a little creepy.

“Watched this at home… alone… now I’m terrified,” one online viewer wrote.

“The backward wearing janitor disguise of the mother with The Following-looking face mask, will haunt your dreams forever,” described another user.

The main reason for the viral success of these spots has to do with Ayson’s offbeat visual style. To the Kiwi director, nothing says “motherly love” quite like a dingy color palette set to the tune of off-kilter singing of maternal longings and a middle-aged woman’s head unexpectedly popping out of a sand dune—as she stalks her only son. As the video’s conclusion states, ‘Smellcome to Manhood.’ 

If you needed further evidence of Ayson’s slightly unnerving genius, remember the Folgers ad, Tolerate Mornings? In the ad, a cultish group of overly enthusiastic performance artists, clad from head-to-toe in garish yellow ensembles, sneak into the unsuspecting lives of suburbanites at the crack of dawn, some sporting unitards and pageboy haircuts. Yep, that was him, too.