The Old Spice ad campaign, ‘The man your man could smell like’ now holds a place in advertising history, so successful that the product is now the #1 body wash brand for men, in an over saturated market, it’s chosen to reposition itself within its market segment without a complete re brand, a confident and brave move, but one that paid off. Old Spice’s figures have show that it’s sales are up 107% since the campaign was unveiled, success advertising agencies must dream of.
Old Spice has been around for 70+ years and unlike similar products hasn’t changed its branding strategy drastically in that time, as mentioned to me recently it’s similar to the deal with Pepsi & Coke.
Both products are fundamentally the same thing, so how do they differentiate themselves? Marketing strategy and Brand positioning. Cokes branding has never changed, its values lie with tradition and nostalgia, in my mind it’s cemented itself as the ‘default’ soft drink, the thing you drink if you’re too lazy to choose anything else. The logo itself has remained pretty much the same all throughout its lifespan as well as the signature red and white colourway. Pepsi on the other hand changes itself for each generation, it’s the competition and you always like one more than the other. It doesn’t rely on nostalgia and instead prides itself as being a part of youth culture and has shown this through its choice of product placement, you can spot it in ‘Wayne’s World’, ‘Home Alone’ and most notably ‘Back to the Future’, the film that practically defines a generation.
So back to Old Spice, in my mind it’s something that your Grandad uses, or that you brother gets for Christmas from your ‘clueless about fragrance’ Granny. Having been employed in a cosmetics/drugs store, I’ve always been aware of the product but it was always shunned to the bottom shelf next to ‘Blue Denim’ or a much ignored musk fragrance. After mentioning the brand in a recent lecture there was a much resounding agreement to the ‘smells like old man’ association that the product seems to have gained. I’d imagine ‘Old Spice’, like many other fragrance brands had loyal users before this campaign was released, the ‘always used this so why should I change it’ syndrome. People invest trust in a brand, according to my most recent read ‘The Brand Gap’.
“The foundation of a brand is trust. Customers trust your brand when their experiences consistently meet or beat their expectations”
This couldn’t be more true especially when it comes to perfume as people buy into the brand and what lifestyle they promise you through advertising. The smell of the fragrance itself seems to come last at point of purchase, after you’ve absorbed all of the different factors. Who’s selling you this perfume? Celebrity perfumes seem to sell based on the idea that this is surely what they smell like, and since they’re successful/beautiful/adored by millions, their scent must have played a big part and contributed to that, right? Is it just coincidence that your favourite celebrity’s perfume is also your favourite scent? Would it still be if the guy in the newsagents was selling it? Probably no. I doubt that Pam down in Tesco could sell a fragrance that “makes women feel sexy, strong, empowered and make them like they can conquer anything.”, but Beyonce sure bloody can.
After reading a case study on ‘Old Spice’ it was proven that women are responsible for the majority of mens grooming purchases, this is a glaring example of selling to the Customers, rather than the Consumers. So Isaiah Mustafa, otherwise known as the ‘old spice guy’ is obviously there for the women, over-exaggerated he might be, he still manages to portray ‘everything your man should be’, all the time questioning the masculinity of the men watching it. If Old Spice is what a man is meant to smell like, why wouldn’t you wear it? We agreed this plants a seed in the mindset of the customer (women) who want to know what Mustafa smells like, and to the consumers (men) who wonder what they should be smelling like. The people behind Old Spice must be confident enough that people may buy the product simply to try it out or as a novelty because, well, everyone’s seen the advert. The question is do they carry on using this? Will they stay loyal to the brand?
Carrying on from this, humour goes a long way in the ad game and this is a prime example, the ad campaign is funny in a witty/taking the mick out of itself way, which makes the watchers feel like they’re in on the joke. That they’re clever enough to get that it’s being over exaggerated and laughing at themselves really. This leads to feeling familiar with the brand, that they ‘get’ you and vice versa. This stands for both men & women, a rarity in mens grooming adverts, it appeals to both genders without showing the obvious ‘girl finding guy irresistible because he wears (x) fragrance’.
Lastly, what I found genius about this ad campaign is its use of viral marketing. Old Spice really used it to full effect, by combining two social networking giants, Youtube & Twitter. Firstly clocking up millions of views after just a day on Youtube, drawing traffic by trending through Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook. Since everything on the Internet seems to move at light speed, you can be popular one day and then something like the ‘Rebecca Black’ fiasco comes along and takes over, Old Spice didn’t let this ‘trending’ opportunity get away and made 180 follow up videos of Isaiah Mustafa answering questions submitted by twitter users, all the while carrying on the same sense of humour & ridiculousness.
