After sixty years, P&G is ready to find a new face for its Mr. Clean brand. Leo Burnett and Citizen Relations launched a new spot for Mr. Clean starring actor Kellan Lutz of the Twilight series and The Legend of Hercules. Don’t worry, we had to Google him too.
The spot, which arrives on the heels of Leo Burnett reviving the Mr. Clean jingle for the brand, features Lutz in a mock audition for the Mr. Clean role. A casting director comments that it’s a big departure from “the whole teen hearthrob thing” and he explains that he’s been looking for something different. His qualifications for the role? He washes his car after every use, polishes his Teen Choice Awards every single day and has “never had a dirty thought” in his entire life. After initially struggling to adapt to the new character, he impresses the casting director…until she finds out something “too dirty for Mr. Clean.”
After the spot’s attempts at meta humor fall flat, it ends with Lutz inviting viewers to try out for the role themselves, directing them to TheNextMrClean.com. In addition to the full-length version online, which stretches the premise well past its breaking point, there’s also a 60-second broadcast version.
“This is the second in our series of efforts to go back to our roots,” Kevin Wenzel, associate brand director for Procter and Gamble North America, explained to Adweek. “The first was the new modern version of our jingle television spot, which we launched July 1. It was a well-known jingle that was used to launch the brand. We used it for decades, and it was brought into a more modern context.”
“We will still have our iconic Mr. Clean, but this will be a chance to let a consumer have a little bit of fun and let us have a little bit of fun as well,” Wenzel clarified. “That next Mr. Clean will be helping us generate content, including appearing in a calendar which we’ll be showing online.”
The brand will be poring over audition tapes submitted online from today through October 7, as well as hosting a pair of casting sessions in New York and Los Angles, before announcing the contest’s $20,000 winner in mid-October. We know someone who would be perfect for the role.