More Top Picks Best Electric Food Warmers
player ready...He dropped his pants, did a dance, and the rest is advertising history.
Vaughn Lowery, the 28-year-old Joe Boxer dance man, is joining the ranks of all-star pitchmen, right up there with the Dell Guy and Mr. Whipple.
Lowery has been doing his doofus dance in Kmart ads, dressed only in Joe Boxer underwear, since July, and already he has his own Web site, www.aboutvaughn.com, a fan club and many television appearances, such as one when he tried to teach Katie Couric on NBC’s “Today” show how to do his inimitable dance. (Note: Talent doesn’t matter; enthusiasm does.)
That is the secret to Lowery’s success: His dance is ridiculous, his attitude infectiously giggly. He says everyone has a secret dance they do in front of the bathroom mirror in their underwear; he just does his for the camera. He smiles a huge smile, and the TV audience smiles with him.
Kmart gets fan mail about Lowery. When the company put Lowery’s dance on the Internet (www.kmart.com), it was downloaded 30,000 times in the first week. When the store put up a site, www.kmartboxers.com, to preview the holiday commercials that feature Lowery doing his dance dressed in a silver gift box that is stripped away to reveal Santa boxers, it received 180,000 hits in the first week.
This frivolity is new to Lowery’s career. On his Internet site there are photos from his modeling days. He looks “GQ”-cool and aloof. It’s a lie. Lowery is “exactly like the commercials. He’s like a hyperactive puppy,” says Kmart spokesman David Karraker, adding that the company likes that energy and has Lowery “under a long-term contract.”
The Boxer Boogie ads, as they are known, consistently rate in the top 10 commercials that consumers remember. Karraker says e-mail that has crossed his screen indicates that what fans like is the good-natured fun of the ads. It’s not sex that’s selling this time, but silliness.