Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
This case study places students in the role of Marc Pritchard, Global Marketing Officer at
Procter & Gamble. Pritchard reflects on the resounding success of recent advertising and
social media campaigns to reposition the Old Spice brand in the consumer marketplace, and
considers his strategic options for the future of the repositioning campaign.
The award-winning Old Spice campaign featured creative mass media advertisements as well
as highly innovative uses of multiple social media platforms.
Case study discussion topics include brand repositioning, demographic and psychographic
market segmentation, advertising, consumer engagement and interaction, social media,
generating buzz, overexposure risk and spokesperson campaigns.
Key Words: Branding, repositioning, social media, advertising, consumer engagement
Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Marc Pritchard, Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble (P&G), sat in his office one
morning in July 2010. Sipping his coffee during a rare moment of peace and quiet, he
reflected on P&G’s recent achievements with the Old Spice brand. “People are still talking
about the ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ commercial all over YouTube, Facebook
and Twitter,” he mused. Working with advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, his team had
created a massive buzz around Old Spice in the market, and taken on Unilever’s rival Axe
brand head on. While Axe was marketed primarily to young males, Pritchard had set his sights
on a much wider target demographic for his Old Spice campaign. “We’ve got the young men
talking, but we’ve got their girlfriends, their parents and the media talking as well...” And not
only had he created buzz around the Old Spice brand, he had actually listened to what his
target demographic was saying and engaged them in a conversation.
So what was next, he wondered. Had he successfully repositioned Old Spice from an outdated
brand to one that was classic, yet cool? Or had he just begun? He knew he had pushed P&G’s
social media marketing to new heights, but what was now required to maintain the buzz he
had worked so hard to create? Sales were increasing, so did he need to do anything more?
History of Old Spice
Originally marketed as a men’s brand, Old Spice was launched in 1938 as a nautical-themed
line of shaving soaps and aftershave lotions. Old Spice held true to this brand identity for
decades, with television advertising campaigns centered on masculine sex appeal throughout
the 1980s.1 The scent of Old Spice aftershave became iconic in North American culture.
By the end of the 1980s, however, the brand began to exhibit signs of aging along with its
loyal customers. Old Spice had lost its appeal among younger men; its once-powerful
messaging and imagery no longer resonated with new generations of buyers.
Procter & Gamble acquired the Old Spice brand in 1990 and promptly extended the product
line into new deodorant products. Television commercials and ad campaigns focused less on
masculinity and shaving, and more on the technical antiperspirant and odor-fighting qualities
of Old Spice deodorant products. P&G featured celebrities such as Will Ferrell and Patrick
Harris in these advertisements in an effort to resonate with younger audiences.2 Overall sales
increased, but not significantly.
In the 2000s, the male grooming product market in North America began to change. Young
men aged 18-35 began paying greater attention to personal grooming and were purchasing
new products such as body washes and body sprays in place of more traditional bar soaps and
colognes. P&G’s market research highlighted two interesting trends. First, that bar soap was
positioned as a gender-neutral product in the marketplace, and second, that men tended to stay
loyal to specific brands for long periods of time. Consequentially, brands of body washes and
sprays targeted specifically at young men presented a massive growth opportunity.
Men’s grooming products quickly became the fastest growing segment in the personal
grooming products market. Old Spice introduced body wash and body spray products, and
sales grew rapidly in the expanding market. However, P&G had caught the bandwagon late,
and trailed Unilever’s Axe and Gillette’s copycat TAG brand. The battle for market share
began to shift in 2005 with P&G’s acquisition of Gillette. Nevertheless, the Old Spice brand
faced a crowding market and sales began to decline shortly thereafter in 2006. In response,
Old Spice launched the “Old Spice Challenge” campaign in 2007 – a series of ads that quite
literally challenged men to purchase and try the masculine scent of Old Spice body washes.3
Focusing on New Customers
In 2009, P&G strove to push Old Spice into the market leader position for men’s deodorant
products, targeting 20% market share worth US $1 billion. To achieve this, P&G needed to
reposition the brand from one known as “old” and “meant for grandfathers” to one for the
young. This feat seemed daunting, but GMO Marc Pritchard believed it could be done.4
P&G recognized that it was necessary, but could be difficult, to respect and pay homage to the
strong, iconic Old Spice brand whilst campaigning new products targeted at a younger
demographic. In an effort to appeal to this new demographic and retain the loyalty of
long-time buyers, the Old Spice brand was organized into three distinct product lines:
(1) “Classic” offered the traditional Old Spice scent in the form of shaving products,
deodorant sticks and body washes.
(2) “High Endurance” was a collection of basic deodorants, body washes and hair
products with newer scents and features.
(3) “Red Zone” was promoted as an up-market line of deodorants, body washes and body
sprays with a time-released scent.
P&G recognized the difficulty of repositioning the brand image in the minds of men aged 18
to 35, their primary audience and market, who associated the Old Spice brand with their
fathers. So instead of focusing exclusively on young men (as did campaigns from Axe and
TAG), Pritchard decided to expand his target audience beyond existing category purchasers to
include women, who had significant influence over men’s purchases of grooming products, as
well as first-time product category buyers.
Television Campaign: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
To start the brand repositioning, P&G launched “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
campaign. Created in combination with advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, the campaign
consisted of two pairs of 30- and 15-second television commercials. The initial wave of
advertisements was broadcast in February 2010, the second wave of follow-up ads in June
2010. The approach of “The Man Your Man Could Small Like” campaign was to embrace the
brand’s heritage – keeping trademark touches like the signature whistle at the end of the ads –
while updating the messaging and imagery with more “swagger” and timely humor.
For “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, the P&G team introduced Isaiah
Mustafa, an American actor and former NFL receiver, as the new spokesman and face of Old
Spice. “He’s funny, he’s attractive, he’s neutral and he’s current,” said James Moorhead, P&G
Brand Manager for Old Spice. The creative team wanted his iconic character to be loved
equally by women and men – a “ladies’ man” who was “OK” for men to love as well.
The first ad featured Mustafa reciting a deadpan, tongue-in-cheek monologue about how
“anything is possible” if a man used Old Spice. 5 In this spot, Mustafa demonstrated to
women how their lives could be better with a man who switched from some “lady-scented
body wash” to Old Spice body wash. Mustafa recited his dialogue in a single uninterrupted
take over a series of transitioning scenery wherein the spokesman went from standing in a
bathroom to walking on a sailboat to riding a horse on a beach. The cascading background
scenery changes were intentionally dramatic as the iconic spokesman had to be introduced as
larger than life, a character that transcended the mundane.
Wieden+Kennedy chose Super Bowl XLIV network broadcasting as their platform to launch
the campaign because of the huge viewership. This first Old Spice ad was an instant hit, going
viral online and gaining more traction than any other Super Bowl commercial that year.6
In an interview with Leo Laporte of TWiT.tv, a podcast featuring discussions on current
technology news, Wieden+Kennedy’s Craig Allen and Eric Kellman (copywriter and art
director of the Old Spice commercials) shocked both the audience and interviewer when they
revealed that the entire ad had been filmed in a single shot without any use of CGI (computer
generated imagery). Laporte explained that the ad had to be something that “grabs the eyes”
and would make men watching it want to smell like and be like the man in the commercial. 7
In the five months following the first airing, the commercial attracted more than 16 million
views on YouTube. In late June 2010, the unique ad won the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes
Lions International Advertising Festival. Jury president and CCO of Leo Burnett Mark Tutssel
enthused, “It took an old, sleepy brand and woke it up and overnight wove its way into
popular culture.”8 Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice Man, also reached instant celebrity status.
He was invited to appear on popular television talk shows such as Ellen Degeneres, Oprah,
CBS’s The Early Show, TV Guide and ESPN’s First Take. In April 2010, Mustafa was named
one of the “50 Most Beautiful People in The World” by People Magazine.
Following on the success of “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad, P&G launched a
follow-up commercial called “Questions.”9 In this ad, Mustafa started with his trademark
greeting “Hello, Ladies” in his husky voice before querying women about how their men look
and smell. Jumping from one scene to the next, Mustafa goes logrolling, renovates a kitchen,
bakes a cake, dives from a waterfall and walks on water. The theme of the ad was to tell
women that while their own men may not be nearly as perfect or manly as him, they could at
least smell like him by using Old Spice body wash. In an interesting reversal of traditional
outlet exposure the advertisement aired online first, then in movie theaters over the following
weekend, and then though national television spots the following week. The “Questions” ad
gained viral exposure much faster than the original ad, riding on the buzz and hype from the
first wave of the campaign; in only one month, the ad reached 11 million views on YouTube.
Online Campaign: “Old Spice Responses”
The Old Spice television advertisements were a massive success in terms of viral video, but
the creative team was not satisfied with resting on their laurels. On July 12th, they decided to
take the Old Spice marketing campaign to real-time internet. P&G and Wieden+Kennedy
gathered their team of writers, creative directors, digital marketing agents and technologists
along with actor Isaiah Mustafa on a film set staged as a bathroom. They then kicked off what
many industry observers thought was the social media marketing coup of this century – the
“Old Spice Responses” campaign.10
The group seeded various social networks such as YouTube11, Facebook12 and Twitter13 with
an invitation to ask questions of Mustafa's character, their dashing, shirtless spokesman with
over-the-top humor. All responses were tracked and selected users received direct and
personalized responses from Mustafa in the form of short, funny YouTube videos. According
to Iain Tait, Wieden+Kennedy’s Global Interactive Creative Director,
“This whole idea of responding to people and being very smart about who we
decided to respond to, and in what manner, that wouldn't have worked if we hadn't
done it in a format like YouTube where we are able to embed it. People are very
familiar with the ways of sharing it, liking it and favoring it, and just the fact that it
can go everywhere very quickly was a huge positive.”14
The Old Spice marketing team knew they could not simply respond to questions and “tweets”
(direct messages on the Twitter platform) with words alone; that had been done before and
would not have been unique or memorable. Embracing the conversational and interactive
nature of social media, the team knew that replying through personalized video could be far
more phenomenal and create even more buzz than the original television ads.
The Old Spice team could not realistically respond to all comments and questions. They
shortlisted questions for responses based on two principles. First, they chose question topics
that were relevant and aligned with the Old Spice brand and campaign positioning. Second,
they intentionally selected questions from high-profile users – social influencers and visible
personalities with significant “follower” communities, such as Digg founder Kevin Rose,
celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and actress Alyssa Milano. Selected mainstream media outlets
such as the Ellen Show, GQ, Guy Kawasaki, Huffington Post and Gizmodo also received
responses, which in turn led to massive mainstream PR when content was “shared” with their
audiences. The Old Spice man even helped one Twitter user propose to his girlfriend.
The “Old Spice Responses” campaign appealed to people’s egos, felt very personalized and
created a significant amount of buzz around the brand in popular culture. The users who
received responses, as well as a very large number of those who did not, shared links to the
video responses through Twitter, Facebook and numerous other social networks.
The marketing team decided to run the online “Responses” campaign for only a short
three-day period, from July 12-14, 2010. Their intention was to generate fresh buzz around
their spokesman and thereby draw interest to the earlier television ads, without overexposing
the personality or brand. The budget for the “Responses” campaign was significantly less than
for the television ads, yet the campaign was a resounding success. It combined unique
advertising, creative writing and the proficient use of social media as a two-way
communication channel to activate mainstream brand coverage. “Old Spice Responses”
topped 6 million total views in the first 24 hours on YouTube, receiving more viewer traffic
than President Obama’s victory speech. Old Spice received thousands of online mentions,
over 60,000 “tweets” and a 1000% increase in Twitter channel following on July 13th alone.
According to Nielsen data provided by Procter & Gamble, overall sales of Old Spice body
wash products increased 11 percent in the 12 months prior to July 2010, 27 percent in the six
months prior and 55 percent from April to June 2010. With the release of two new television
spots and the “Responses” campaign, Old Spice saw body wash product sales increase 107
percent in July 2010 alone. Data supplied by consultant Sanford C. Bernstein also showed
substantial increases in the Red Zone line, with July sales up 29 percent from March.15
Moving Forward
Marc Pritchard pressed the intercom buzzer on his desk and paged his assistant. “Jenn, I think
I need to meet with Maggie Entwistle next week. See if you can line up a lunch with her
please.” Although everything seemed too good to be true, Pritchard knew instinctively that he
could not take his foot off the accelerator just yet.
Working with Entwistle, Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, he had brought Old Spice
back to relevance. Once an old and dying brand, Old Spice was now the hot topic of
conversation for young men and young women across North America. Sales were up, margins
were up, morale was up… but had they finished what they started? “Maybe,” he thought to
himself, “but then again, we may have just created the tip of our own iceberg.” Should P&G
try to maintain the current campaign’s momentum, and possibly risk “too much of a good
thing” and having the novelty of the campaign wear thin? Or should the intensity of the
campaign be downgraded while the market was abuzz, leaving consumers wishing for more?
EXHIBITS
Exhibit 1: Old Spice Classic commercials
Source: YouTube
Exhibit 2: Old Spice Product Line (2010)
Source: www.oldspice.com
Exhibit 3: TV commercial, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (2010)
Source: YouTube
Exhibit 4: Social Media Campaign-Old Spice Responses
Source: Old Spice Twitter Account & Facebook Account, www.oldspice.com
Exhibit 5: Social Media Statistics
YouTube (youtube.com/user/OldSpice)
Name: Old Spice Channel
Views: 9,704,274
Upload Views: 117,429,622
Joined: January 01, 2006
Subscribers: 147,180
Website: http://www.oldspice.com
Country: United States
Accolades:
#2 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Sponsors
#1 - Most Viewed (This Month)
#1 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Sponsors
#1 - Most Viewed (All Time) – Sponsors
Twitter (twitter.com/oldspice)
Increase in user followers from 8,000 to 95,267 after the Old Spice response campaign
Facebook (facebook.com/OldSpice)
Increase in user followers from 563 000 to 717,269 after the Old Spice response campaign
Exhibit 5: Statistics from the Old Spice Channel on YouTube (July 28, 2010)
Source: Youtube, www.visiblemeasures.com
Sales Growth of Old Spice Body Wash Products (%)
Exhibit 6: Sales Growth
Source:http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i3639278d2189e4efd
2b8ab7d46542e93?pn=2
Endnotes
1
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t0z04Qz61Q, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBL4wn1H9oE
2
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmJ0dpDKYU#t=00m05s
3
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aj55sgudlc
4
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_44/b3906116.htm
5
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE
6
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/old-spice-man-is-here-for-you/
7
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDk9jjdiXJQ for full interview
8
http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2010/07/old_spice_ad_campaign_smells_l.html
9
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTIowBF0kE
10
See http://www.youtube.com/user/OldSpice#p/c/484F058C3EAF7FA6
11
See http://www.youtube.com/user/OldSpice
12
See http://www.facebook.com/OldSpice
13
See http://twitter.com/oldspice
14
http://www.wk.com/blogs
15
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i3639278d2189e4efd2b8ab7d46542e93?pn=2