Agency Sends Copywriter Into Wilderness to Live Exclusively on Its Clients’ Brands for 5 Days

You've heard the adage that agencies should use their clients' products. It's the least you can do, if you're going to be selling them. 

But what if you upped the stakes a little and made a social reality show out of it? One man. Five days. 15 brands … and the ravages of nature. 

That's the premise of Portland, Ore.-based Roundhouse's latest promo, "Living Off the Brands," for which copywriter Lee Kimball is spending five days in the wild, using only the brands the agency has on its roster … which incidentally doesn't include any food accounts besides a chocolate brand. (OK, it does have Red Bull, and also Prisoner wine, which we have tried living on with middling success.)

Here's the list of brands from the press release: 

• Adidas

• Faust

• Finex

• LA Galaxy

• Leatherman

• Leupold Optics

• Microsoft

• Reebok

• Redington

• Red Bull

• Rio

• Treehouse Chocolate

• Widmer Brothers

• Yeti

The promotion punctuates Roundhouse's 15th anniversary. Here's a nice spread of stuff Kimball has at his disposal. Maybe a water or beef jerky brand will join the club out of pity, and they can lower the wares to him like in Hunger Games: 

Kimball was dropped off in Oregon's Lower Crooked River on Monday and is due to wrap his adventure up today. Watch him fish, forage and try making fire across a slew of social networks, where you could also provide feedback and advice: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Periscope, Snapchat (roundhousepdx).

 

I have (finally) made fire! #LivingOffTheBrands

A video posted by Roundhouse (@roundhousepdx) on Jul 19, 2016 at 1:44am PDT

He's even socializing with the locals. 

 

At least I won't be lonely out here as long as I keep meeting new friends like Buxton here. (That's what I named him.) #LivingOffTheBrands

A video posted by Roundhouse (@roundhousepdx) on Jul 18, 2016 at 12:01pm PDT

Valiance-wise, this ranks up there with Le Balene's 125-mile walk to a pitch, using the client's mobile technology. They made it, albeit with horrific blisters; we're rooting for Kimball, too.

It also doesn't escape us that his trip fell at the same time as the Republican National Convention, which is pleasingly ironic: While the Republican party struggles not to sell out to the bombastic wormhole presence of Donald Trump—at the risk of our nation!—Kimball must prove he's the ultimate sell-out, at the risk of light dehydration and heatstroke.

In any case, it's been a lot funner than watching David on Demand, which frankly didn't bring out the best in us.