Hanes Sets 'Average Joe' Loose Among Celebs, Athletes

Hanes has launched an online campaign, "Dave's Detours," using St. Louis resident real estate agent and "average Joe" Dave Picard, whom it hired to travel around as a one-man guerilla campaign for the underwear brand.

His efforts are focused on on-camera interviews of A-to-D-list celebrities and athletes whom he peppers with questions about how they stay comfortable and challenges to arm wrestling, underwear tossing and thumb-wrestling wars.

The effort--so far--features the likes of Jeffrey Ross, Reggie Bush, Chuck Liddell, Cuba Gooding Jr. and the Olly Girls, and St. Louis rapper Nelly.

Davesdetours.com features videos, celebrity interviews, daily blogs and a scoreboard of Picard's standing versus the celebs. The site includes a consumer input/chat area, where visitors can chat with him or offer suggestions for future challenges. Hanes will also run video of him doing his thing on CraveOnline.Com, ComedyCentral.Com and ESPN.Com.

Dan Curran, president of Ngage, the emerging-media agency in St. Louis that worked on the effort, said the campaign was collaborative. "We helped tighten the strategy and further develop the character."

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Curran, who says the effort targets millennials, says Picard won out in a national audition. "We did a nationwide search and got numerous video submissions. We did it in-house, placing ads all over the U.S."

The agency oversaw last year's "Comfort Zone" campaign, also a consumer input effort that ended in the fourth quarter. He says this latest effort is open-ended. "It opens a dialogue with the consumer. They have the ultimate voice telling him where to go next." He says a beta test in October garnered half a million video views.

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