Gregg's Blog

I'm on a horse.

The Old Spice “manly” ads are one of the most memorable and successful ad campaigns in recent years. These commercials entertain the audience both with their eloquent dialogue, cleverly changing sets, and undeniably handsome spokesman. One single T.V. commercial turned into a series of internet and television ads that practically re-wrote some of the rules of advertising.  After the original television ad went viral, Procter & Gamble focused more on an internet audience (Stratoserve, 2012). Over a three day period, nearly 200 individual commercials were made and released on the internet (Reiss, 2010). These ads were literally unique, since they responded directly to their customer’s questions, with personalized replies, in nearly real time! Using Twitter, Reddit, You Tube and Digg, Old Spice opened a dialogue with their customers. The Old Spice channel was the number one watched channel on You Tube that week. Total downloads for all of the "Old Spice Man" commercials are over 187 million (Newman, 2012).

The first ad opens with a chiseled black man standing in a bathroom wearing a towel. He speaks directly to the camera, asking women to look at their man, and then back to him. He consoles the women viewers saying, ‘your man is not me, but he could smell like me’ and holds up a bottle of Old Spice body wash. The bathroom walls raise up to reveal he’s on a boat, and a shirt with tied sleeves drops from the sky around his neck and the towel is pulled away to reveal he’s wearing pants. The camera tightens up as he puts down the body wash and holds up an oyster containing “two tickets to that thing you love” they turn into diamonds, then another bottle of Old Spice body wash magically rise up from the spilling diamonds. As the camera pulls back, he is sitting on a white horse, holding the body wash and proudly states the obvious: “I’m on a horse.” The ad closes with the Old Spice name, the screen text “Smell like a man,man”, and the companies trade mark whistle tune “do do doo doot do do doo”

First “Old Spice Man” commercial….


 
The actors soothing voice, smooth tongue and comedic timing almost distract the viewer from what’s going on around him. What is going on around him is pretty amazing. In this age of computerized digital effects, changing backgrounds are hardly noteworthy, but this commercial was done with very minimal CGI use. Elaborate outdoor sets were constructed, with moving walls and a hidden moving platform to transfer him from the ‘boat’ to the live horse. Most interesting is the fact that the commercial is one long shot, meaning it has no editing cuts. This required 3 days and 57 takes to get it right. The only trick photography was the diamonds pouring from his hand, (which was actually a fake hand pushing up fake diamonds-superimposed) and the Old Spice bottle rising up from the diamonds. The background illusions are like a magicians act that you re-watch trying to figure out how it was done. The overt message is 'use this and smell like a man'. The covert message is 'Old Spice is hip, and no longer just the stuff your Dad and Grandpa used'. The humor and quirkiness of this commercial appealed to many different types of watchers.

 Portland Or, based advertising company Weiden and Kennedy were the brains behind the commercial (Turnquist, 2010), and knew they had to build on its success. Five months later, they flew Isaiah Mustafa (who was born in Portland Or) to Portland for a new media blitz. A message went out on Twitter @OldSpice, and Old Spices Facebookpage , that the Old Spice man was coming back. After releasing a teaser video titled “I’m back”, Weiden and Kennedy announced that one “super-fan” would get to post the newest commercial on the social media site of their choosing, before it was released on t.v. (Marshall, 2011). For three days, in 12hour shifts, they made short, personalized commercials. These “shout-outs” went to celebrities, social media icons, and average Joe citizens. During the first two days of the personalized ads, Twitter followers for Old Spice went from 3,000 to 46,000 (Turnquist, 2010). In just seven days they had 35.7 million individual views. Just three days after starting the series of personalized responses, the final commercial was addressed to “everyone”. In just a few days it was watched 2.7 million times. It also received 5,800 comments on YouTube alone (Marshall, Old Spice sales double, 2010).

@GStephanopoulos …



@KatJohnston …

 "Everyone"...



An interesting thing about these commercials, is who they were they trying to reach. Despite the intended user of the product being a man, the ads are directed at women "Hello Ladies..." Maybe a bit of jealousy or fear of losing their lady to this guy will make men buy the manly body wash? Probably not, but advertising research has shown that men are also drawn to attractive male models. Underwear ads have long used half naked men to sell men's underwear. Scientific studies have shown that male brains stop just short of sexual attraction when looking at images of naked or half naked male models. Instead neural activity was focused in a part of the brain where the viewer would imagine he was looking at a picture of himself. So even if most guys would not admit it, the half naked guy spokesman works on them too. The main demographic they were trying to reach ? A younger audience. Some comments on the internet included “my Grandpa wore Old Spice” and “Why are they advertising a dead brand?” But even these people were watching the commercials and talking about the brand. That called success. And Old spice was far from dead, thanks to the surge in popularity, sales rose 107% in just one month (Axon, 2010). This moved Old Spice to the number two selling brand behind Right Guard (Mike, 2010).



Besides the Weiden and Kennedy produced ads, many spin-offs, spoofs and even re-mixses flooded the internet. From Puss-in-boots, to Sesame Street, Old Spice fever swept the internet. When an 11 year old boy did a version for his Mon’s birthday, IT went viral, landing the boy on the Ellen DeGeneres show. This was essentially bonus advertising that Old Spice did not have to pay for. Letting the public get involved, even if inadvertently, was working, and P&G sat back and rode the wave.
They knew they needed something big to follow the success of the personalized commercials, and Super Bowl Sunday was coming…With a similar style to their original commercial, one continuous shot, they proceeded to go even bigger. Moving walls, walking on water, falling props, a ”swan dive”, a disappearing hot tub…and Isaiah straddling something (this time a motorcycle). Again minimal (if any) CGI or superimposing was done. The internet buzzed about the new commercial, how was it done? Isaiah did explain how most of the commercial was done during an interview, but the switch from barefoot in cargo shorts, to tight jeans and shoes remains a mystery.

“Questions” video…



To say these ads were successful would be an understatement. Proctor & Gamble now says they plan on cutting back on traditional advertising and "focus more on digital marketing". These commercials introduced a whole new (younger) generation to the Old Spice brand. I have watched these commercials many times just for the entertainment factor, (but have never bought the product). But the millions of clicks, comments and increased sales all show to the commercials influence. They also show the power of connecting with your customers.
Silver Fish Hand Catch !

Wow, its been years since I last wrote a blog entry (and that was about how long it had been since I had last blogged). I just don't see the point of writing to what must be an audience of zero. That said, I WILL be posting a few things in the next few months, for a class I'm taking at Linn Benton Community College. The class is about media and society. I will be writing on topics such as advertising, television, comparing print to on-line newspapers and I will review a movie or book for the final blog So if anybody actually reads any of these posts, hope you find it interesting. Gregg