How MANSCAPED is giving the Super Bowl a shorn serenade

Some Super Bowl ads have big celebs. Some have flashy effects. Some might even have a cute child or animal being all cute, so everyone says, “Well, isn’t that cute?” But we bet none of them will stick in the mind quite like these wailing wads.

Airing on NBC just before kick-off on February 8, MANSCAPED’s Super Bowl debut, Hair Ballad, gives a voice to one of life’s forgotten offcuts: the hair removed whilst self-grooming.

Created by agency Quality Meats and directed by MJZ duo The Perlorian Brothers, the film’s anarchic sensibility, paired with an overtly heartfelt ditty, makes for something that is certain to distract (if not deter) the football audience from their dips.

shots caught up with Quality Meats co-founders and Co-Chief Creative Officers Brian Siedband and Gordy Sang, alongside Group Creative Directors Brett Beaty and Clarissa Dale, and directors The Perlorian Brothers, to find out how to shave the day.

First things first, at what stage did you look at a pile of cropped hair and think, “How do you feel?” and “Can you sing?”

Brett Beaty: I mean, who hasn’t stared at a pile of their own freshly shaved body hair on the bathroom floor and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be really weird if this pile of hair came to life and stared into your soul while singing a sad, sad break-up song?’

And was it handy that Manscaped were clients?

Brian Siedband: They actually weren’t clients at first. They asked us, along with a few other agencies, to pitch their Super Bowl campaign.

During our virtual presentation, I awkwardly sang the song lyrics while sitting in a cramped minivan on set at another shoot, which I’m sure made everyone who witnessed it highly uncomfortable.

There’s a video of the meeting that they passed around internally to sell the idea through that hopefully won’t resurface on the internet as blackmail.

Seriously, what was the conversation that took you from “we need a Super Bowl spot” to… this?

Gordy Sang: Manscaped actually came to us with a pretty interesting challenge. They’re a pretty well-known brand, but the majority of people know them for specialising in grooming a man’s nether regions, and they wanted to highlight how they have a suite of products that groom the whole face, head and body.

Plus it being a national television commercial, you can’t refer or infer the whole “balls” thing anyway. So the shortcut or cheat-code of using something edgy around that was instantly off the table.

But being Super Bowl, it needs to be as breakthrough as possible.

And hair, specifically body hair, and more specifically body hair that’s not on the body, seemed like something that would get a strong visceral reaction along with being highly ownable for the brand.

So from there it was about exploring how we use that “body hair tool”, but in a way that’s still charming and disarming to the broader audience.

Thus the ugly-yet-weirdly-cute-ish-slash-sad singing clumps of hairball monsters.

Once the concept was established, what came first: securing the right production partner, or nailing the power ballad and its emotional tone?

BS: Both. This was one of those concepts where it’s so simple, it lives or dies by the executional craft.

We wanted to treat both the music and visuals seriously since the idea’s so inherently funny and absurd to begin with.

Making tiny little puppets entirely out of human hair that can convincingly convey complex emotions of abandonment and longing through song is surprisingly trickier than it sounds.”

So we hit the ground running looking at directors and music houses and composers who got the sincerity we were going for.

And then we fast-tracked the song so we had all the timings locked down by the time we filmed everything.

What drew you to the Perlorian Brothers to helm the film? Was there a specific piece from their back-catalogue that cemented the deal?

GS: The Perlorian Brothers have always made work that feels a bit left of centre and has a unique “flavour” that cuts through the mainstream world of commercials.

Plus they have a wealthy history of working with puppet-styled things, which seemed important for this job.

One spot specifically that we’ve always remembered was their Benny & Lenny Great Clips ad. It was hilariously low-fi dumb puppetry mixed with dark and sad vibes and emotions. Felt like it struck the right tone we were looking for our hairball ballad.

What was your first reaction to the project, and what did you feel it had to absolutely nail from a craft perspective?

The Perlorian Brothers: First reaction: “ewww.” Second reaction: “awww.”

Since CGI technology has finally nailed perfect rendering of realistic hair textures we decided right away that this had to be done with actual little puppets made from human hair clippings.

But making tiny little puppets entirely out of human hair that can convincingly convey complex emotions of abandonment and longing through song is surprisingly trickier than it sounds.

Fortunately we had the help of our very good friends and frequent co-conspirators at the Can Can Club in Buenos Aires.

Together with the Quality Meats and Manscaped teams we formed a hair puppet League of Very Specific Geniuses that brought these little hairbuddies into the world.

The hairballs balance grossness and cuteness in equal measure. How did the designs evolve, and how many versions didn’t make the cut?

PB: Hair puppets evolve on a microbial timeline, meaning there were new iterations almost every time you sneezed, literally every time you sneezed.

So we went through many, many, many evolutions of eye placement, mouth movement, hairstyles and movement mechanisms.

On puppets this small, a tiny tweezer change can make the difference between sympathy and disgust.

By the end of it we arrived at a hairy little menagerie that everyone felt a connection with.

Then all these fragile little life-forms had to do was fly 5000 miles from Argentina to Canada… and also clear customs.

Coincidentally, “a balance of grossness and cuteness in equal measure” is actually the Perlorian brand statement (though we won’t tell who is whom).

We love a puppet here at shots, so we were delighted to see the characters were practical. Was there ever serious discussion about going CG or AI, or was it always puppetry?

Clarissa Dale: From the start, we all agreed the little hair clumps had to be handmade, practical puppets.

Human body hair has all kinds of very specific textures, and people would have immediately sensed if it were CGI or AI. That would have flattened the effect.

On puppets this small, a tiny tweezer change can make the difference between sympathy and disgust.

The visceral reaction we wanted from the audience could only come from using the real thing. Watching CanCan the puppet makers obsess over the placement of every strand of hair, every texture, and every shape of eyeball was so fun, and the kind of craft we wish we could bring to every single project.

Long live handmade things!

PB: We knew from previous miracles that Becho and M.A.B. of CanCan Club can do anything (and we also knew that they had unlimited heads of lush, beautiful hair), but anyone who has tried to fashion a friend out of their own hair clippings will know that it’s a tricky medium.

But with a lot of blood, sweat and tears (all of which are surprisingly effective hair adhesives) the collection of hair critters came to life.

We have been reading a lot about this AI, though, and someday we’ll have to look into it.

Tell us about the development of the song. What were the musical references and emotional influences behind it?

BS: Our song brief evolved a bit. We originally wrote it loosely to the tune of “Part Of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, where she longs to be human, thinking it was going to be a traditional Broadway-styled ballad. But the compositions we started listening to in this vein felt like parodies of Broadway or Disney songs, which was too over the top.

Walker Music gave us a really strong range of musical ideas that expanded our brief, really taking our “heartfelt” note to heart. There was something about this particular song, composed by Nick Lutsko, that was really unique. The twangy yet gentle voice at the opening, the deceptively simple melody that keeps ascending and growing, it really grabbed us and stuck with us.

It ultimately became a mix of emo singer/songwriter slash modern off-broadway slash 70s arena rock Queen, which just felt like the right musical vibe for sad hairballs about to be drowned to death in toilet water.

How was the shoot itself? Were there any unexpected technical or logistical challenges working with the puppets?

PB: Once we settled on how we wanted each puppet to look, the biggest technical issue was simply trying to maintain each character’s shape and form.

Each puppet is really just a ball of hair built around the mechanism to move the mouth.

So the creatures were changing all the time.

Our amazing puppeteering team, Can Can from Buenos Aires, flew across the world not with fully formed puppets but with one suitcase full of hair clippings and another filled with glass eyeballs.

The whole process was building a little creature, taking a photo of him, sweeping him up, and then hoping to rebuild him in a similar fashion on set.

The spot doesn’t shy away from showing people shaving in fairly compromising positions. Was there ever a threat to limit it to the non-bikini areas?

BB: Definitely. Immediately, we knew we would have to go up against all the standard network TV censors.

Which is a challenge for a brand built on shaving men’s balls.

Each puppet is really just a ball of hair built around the mechanism to move the mouth.

Luckily, the aim was to showcase a suite of products to prove that Manscaped is now more than just that.

We got to have a little more fun for the full, online version.