The venerable Old Spice brand has been creatively advertised in a new spot created by Portland ad agency Weiden and Kennedy. However, what has given the commercial added life was its placement on YouTube, with accompanying Facebook link. Then, to add more to its popularity (and generate some attention for its creators), another spoof was created by some students from my alma mater-BYU. I love them both! See for yourself and then imagine what could be done for your own brand with a little creativity.
Piggyback PR 
This campaign is one of my favorites. Not only were they able to execute comedy while still having a sexy edge, they created a campaign that has legs through paid advertising but most importantly through unpaid viral videos. People are inspired to make their own versions of this campaign, and if executed well enough- create their own popularity. W+K did a really remarkable job associating Old Spice with this campaign and bringing Old Spice back into the running. Below is an example of how people are using this. Im not sure if most of you have seen this but its a pretty funny Facebook post.
look at your status, now back to mine, now back to yours, now back to mine. Sadly, yours isn’t mine. But if you stopped posting about other things and made this your status, yours could be like mine. Look down, back up. Where are you? You’re on Facebook, reading the status your status could be like. I’m on a computer.
These Old Spice advertisements are brilliant. They are both entertaining and humorous. The message is that your life can be better with old spice and they present this by constantly changing the set to unique locations. There is a lot of creativity put into these commercials with the wording, props and set. Old spice commercials give the viewer a small adventure and although these commercials don’t give much information about the characteristics of the product, they do a good job of identifying the product for the viewer. “Old Spice”.
I love these Old Spice advertisements! Love this commercial. Every time it comes on, my boyfriend is sitting next to me on the couch and my head is moving back and forth as the guy is saying “look at your man, look at me”. Hilarious.
They made a smart move by adding some humor into their campaigns because the Manly-man stuff that Old Spice was doing for their commercials actually was somewhat “boring” and typical.
Love these ads! And yes the stuff does actually smell good. Cleaver and funny. There are not many “interactive” commercials out there and they really found a niche with these. BYU’s version would have been better with the guy’s shirt off in the library, but I’ll settle for smart and holding a sandwich. 😉
Umm I have to agree. I think that the only thing Weiden and Kennedy’s has on BYU’s is that their model has his shirt off. I mean come on! Overall, both did great with this commercial. It’s very funny, and if I were a man, I would totally buy Old Spice because of it!
These ads are fantastic, I like it so much! I can smell it, and it smells so good. The ads really catches the attentions, and they’re very creative ads that I’ve seen. It’s like you’re having a conversation with the ads directly, and I like when they change the location and stuff, and it’s very entertaining and funny. It’s great when the audiences can interact with the ads while watching it, and it makes me feel like I’m talking with my friends: now back to yours, back to mine, look at your grades, sadly they’re not like mine…it’s very fun!
Sure, the Old Spice ad campaign was remarkable. The ROMI was staggeringly obvious for the brand and a new generation of fans look to be staying with Old Spice. But the BYU ad was well worth paying attention to. They hit at just the right time and made just the right moves to creatively parody the original. I doubt that W+K would have thought another organization could so quickly ride their coattails. Cisco tried this and failed miserably. They put together 18 videos with a character named Ted who represented some egg-head from the accounting department. The videos have all tracked in the low thousands when it comes to views. That’s definitely a failure in terms of generating the right kind of attention.
Both ads are intended to give new life to otherwise mundane products (i.e. a market-saturated commodity or a school library). However, both the original and BYU’s interpretation focus on the “man you want” rather than the “man you have”—a very rousing storyline.
The Old Spice campaign is one of my favorites probably of all time. I think its great. I also loved how the students pulled one off at BYU as well. I think both are effective and very well though out. This format for the Old Spice commercial has been adapted with many different companies. Though few have pulled it off quite as well as the BYU students have. Companies like Living Social have tried to do campaigns along the same line though to me it just doesn’t work as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVj6x6t5pE as seen on you tube. When using the Old Spice campaign as a beginning for yours you need to be aware of your target audience. The BYU one works because students are able to compare it with the Old Spice one and it makes it cool, though with Living Social it doesn’t work quite as well.
This Old Spice campaign is amazing. And the most impressive about it is that it’s a simple idea and a simple execution, but it’s creative and works very well. The product has nothing special; it’s just body wash. But it doesn’t need to be a great product, it can have as many differentiations or USP as you want, it will still be body wash. By using this man your man could smell like, they succeed on making this brand and the product unique and enviable. Old Spice’s campaign is hilarious, and proves a deep understanding of the target audience. They convey exactly the right message, through the comparison with your man, and the setting changing all the time.
Moreover, what is great about this idea is that there are unlimited different executions possible, and all of them make the public laugh like if it was the first time they see it. And I have to say it; I’m in love with the man my man could smell like!
I really like the BYU ad too, it’s as effective of the original one, and the fact that it talks about the library makes it even funnier!
Weiden and Kennedy does it again! These guys just know how to make advertisements. I for one believe humor is best angle for most ambiguous products, like deodorant and body care products, because inherently, they are not exciting to talk about in the first place. Isiah Mustafa is just spot on in his voice and delivery. Without him, the commercial would not be funny and unique, and without differentiation, your just another deodorant.
Oh wow, this was my first time seeing this and I love it. It doesn’t surprise me that such a great commercial was developed by W+K. From a PR/ Marketing point of view I think the most important piece that makes this work is knowing your audience. Not only is the content appropriate for a young audience but the delivery is great. It’s fast paced, witty and inspiring!
I hadn’t seen the BYU video before. That’s pretty fun. It’s a little exhausting to be in Portland and know some of the people that actually work on these campaigns. They know it’s good work and they don’t have any trouble patting themselves on the back about it either. I agree that The Old Spice campaign is really funny and has absolutely capitalized on the new digital communications to build brand awareness. This campaign is teaching other brands just how to integrate new media into their current campaigns. I just feel like we’ll be seeing a lot of Man Your Man Could Smell like parody campaigns for a while before we get introduced to the next brilliant thing. In the meantime many W+K people and those closely associated will continue to blow their horns in our direction. Again, I love the campaign, I just leery of brass sections in general.
I just now have seen the BYU video and I must say I was impressed with the imitation. My only criticism is that they didn’t exactly come up with the idea themselves. I think the reason why I haven’t seen this video before now is that so many try to copy great things and more often than not, the imitation can cheapen the original or comes off more offensive than flattering. However, I will say that the BYU version was done right and proves how great an affect an ad campaign like the W+K one can have on consumers.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
This is an example of an advertising campaign with a great creative concept. These commercials always leave me wondering what the good old Mustafa is going to do next. I think the reason that this advertising campaign was so successful was their clever use of video via Youtube to engage customers with the brand. If my memory serves me correctly, they allowed consumers to send in their ideas of what they wanted Mustafa to do and they filmed tons of mini commercials that they aired on Youtube. One consumer even used his commercial to propose to his girlfriend. According to an article I just read, this advertising campaign increase traffic to oldspice.com by 300% and increased overall sales for the product by 107%. Cheers to Weiden and Kennedy for hitting a home run.
With regard to the imitation done by BYU, I thought it was clever and I was surprised with how well it was executed.
Great work BYU, not only did you make us laugh, but your message had meaning.
I love the fact that W+K had Old Spice play the big brother role to AXE, whose advertisements are geared toward a younger crowd. It’s amazing how Old Spice is talking to women, telling them how to “enhance their men” instead of AXE telling 14 year old boys that their body spray will get them “chicks”. When it comes down to it, its an ad that is purely humorous, and as a long time Old Spice user, it only reinforces me to keep using it.
And don’t get me stated on W+K and digital strategy, they reign supreme in my book. The newest campaign for the “Kobe System” was a huge success by reaching out and sending tweets to random followers who were hashtagging #kobesystem, either giving them kobe system advice or sending them free gear. The agency even had comic book illustrators on staff for a day to draw pictures of monsters inspired by tweets sent from followers. Having one tv spot and calling it quits is not possible in this era of clutter.
I think that the idea of using the idea of the old spice creative commercial idea is amazing, but I never understood why lots of people liked the original video of Old spice, I still think this video is immature in delivering the value of the product because this product makes the best deodorant I have ever bought. They should have focused more on the smell and long stay of the smell on daily bases.
In conclusion, using the same idea for a library commercial is very smart in getting the target market as students in the second video.
Both commercials are very creative and well done. The impact of a video going viral can be very beneficial to a business and using social media to spread the video can maximize the benefits. Creating is video that goes viral though is where the challenge is.
I am familiar with the Old Spice ads and find them very effective and entertaining. The BYU version was new to me however. I thought it was well put together and highly creative in its execution. Having such a fresh ad made for something as boring and unappealing as a college library is an interesting take on advertising. It definitely works with its witty, humorous style though. It shows that when it comes to promoting a brand, originality and creativity are what really stand out. Getting noticed means coming up with trendy ideas and thinking outside the box, even if the center of attention is something bland and unexciting.
I have seen, for the first time, this video two months ago, in my advertising class. Unfortunately, I have never seen this ad in France, and i have never seen an ad following the same concept in France. Until today, I’ve seen this video more than ten times thanks to YouTube and i have shared this ad to come social media. It is not just about influencing customers or delivering an information about a product, it is a great ad that turns into culture. In France, we have a show named Culture Pub that order advertisement from all-around the World. They understood that Advertising is not only selling, it can be art that has to be shared.
As Rudy said before, we saw this ad in our advertising class because it is a very interesting and innovative ad. It delivers what we can called ‘the big promise’ that is to say smelling like the man all women dream about. Indeed, the ad has used as emotional appeal, the sex appeal. Moreover, the target market is not only the man that will use this soap but also their girlfriends and wives that want them to smell like the man in the ad. It is a very innovative way to communicate about the product because they change cleverly the target market.
I think W&K created a beautiful campaign. And the fact that any commercial created under the same style, automatically takes you back to the name old spice…even if its a “library” commercial. It’s been way over a year and everyone still talks about it….truly shows that a simple but humorous idea can go a long way