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Old Spice Manly Test
Old Spice Manly Test
Kevin Pinney
February 15, 2010
Maryville University
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Old Spice Manly Test
Abstract
This paper is a textual analysis of the Old Spice Manly Test 30 second television advertisement
created to capture a younger market that the brand had traditionally missed out on. The
commercial uses an average man to exemplify manly traits and actions. Experience and
exaggeration play big role in Old Spice’s advertising campaign, and they are used to show how a
real man look, act, and smell. Subtle acts like inflection in dialogue or executing a head nod
with a half smile demonstrate this man’s experience. The manly test between Old Spice and
another brand of deodorant establishes the connection between manly and attractive. This ad
creates an image of how an attractive man should behave and look.
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Old Spice Manly Test
Old Spice Manly Test
In the year 2006, Axe body spray, produced by Unilever, entered the market of men’s
grooming products. It challenged for space in the same market of long-established Old Spice,
produced by Procter and Gamble. Axe had an edgy advertising campaign with a slogan of,
“How dirty boys get clean,” and by creating the phrase “Axe Effect” to describe when women
flock to a nicely groomed, clean man. Old Spice did not have anything like that. They had a
loyal group of more mature customers, where Axe tapped the younger portion of that market. To
compete against this newcomer, Procter launched an improved advertising campaign to gain
more market share of the twenty-something’s that Axe advertisements were so good at capturing.
Since Old Spice has a legacy and has been around since 1934, an emphasis was put on
experience in the new ad campaign. To capitalize on the Old Spice legacy, vintage print ads
were reproduced with risqué tag lines like, “If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t
exist.” The old logo was also resurrected along with the classic whistle for television and radio
commercials. (Elliott, 2007) They stayed true to the brand while appealing to a completely
different generation. These new ads mixed experience that the Old Spice brand had to offer with
exaggeration and humor to define modern man’s attractiveness.
The commercial opens with a basketball being tossed to a middle-aged, white male in a
locker room. He lifts his foot on the bench and rests with the ball between his arm and elevated
knee. Sweat glistens on his toned body and a bandage covers a wound on his knee won while
playing an intense game of basketball. He looks like he just finished playing the game with
some of his friends. He’s wearing shorts and has a small towel draped over the back of his neck
and shoulders. This man is the idealistic average man. He is young but not old, attractive but
not too attractive. He has muscle but it is not over the top, and he has just enough chest hair.
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Old Spice Manly Test
Old Spice found the sweet spot for age with this character. If he would have been younger, he
would lose credibility. If he would have been older, he would not be as cool. This man is a
seasoned veteran of masculinity, but he is not old and burnt out. When the camera does a close
up on his face, you can see he has white, straight teeth, and about one day of beard growth.
These are all things that contribute to attractiveness in American men. In examining him even
more closely, his arms appear to be shaven, unlike his chest. His hair is fixed as well. The
shaved arms and styled hair conflict with the rest of the sweaty, athletic man, but are likely
necessary to preserve his attractiveness. Unkempt, sweaty hair and really hairy arms are two
traits that are not very attractive. Even though most American men do not shave their arms, and
nobody’s hair stays styled through a basketball game, these elements balance with the rest of the
man to create a reasonably average, attractive man.
What the man speaks of during the commercial further reinforces what his physical
appearance suggests. He opens by saying, “I used to think it didn’t matter what deodorant I
chose. Dumb.” The man’s age allows him to have the life experience necessary to determine
which deodorant products work the best. A younger, less experienced man would still have that
dumb idea in his head. The strong assertion that something he used to think is dumb requires
quite a bit of confidence. He admits that he was wrong and the strong assertion suggests that he
will never go back to his old way of thinking. He knows that “Old Spice performs in real man
situations like basketball, recon, and Frenching.” The stark contrast between recon and
Frenching makes the latter stand out even more. He even cracks a half smile and slightly nods
his head right before mentioning kissing. Those are motions of experience. He has been there,
and he knows it is awesome. Having relations with ladies is one of the manliest things a man can
do. The thing is, it does not just take manliness to get a woman, it takes attractiveness. And one
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Old Spice Manly Test
of the many reasons this man is attractive because he uses the right deodorant. The man then
invites the audience members to “Try Old Spice, and if you still don’t think it’s awesome, call 1800-PROVEIT. And they’ll buy you a stick of something that smells like wildflowers and
shame.” This is when the focus of the ad turns away from him and more outward. The man
already wears Old Spice, and he already knows that it is awesome. He wants others to try it so
they can be like him and see the difference. The man implies that every other brand of deodorant
is feminine. No self respecting man wants to smell like wildflowers. Of course, other brands for
men do not smell like wildflowers. He is embellishing a little bit to make his point stronger. The
man closes by telling the audience to “Take the Old Spice Challenge. I did.” The commercial
cuts to a stick of Old Spice and the number to call superimposed next to it. If he took the Old
Spice Challenge and looks and behaves like that, why wouldn’t anyone else? This commercial
dialogue separates Old Spice as a man’s deodorant. If a man wears anything else, he runs the
risk of smelling like “wildflowers and shame” and being unattractive.
There is one more element to this advertisement. It is a side-by-side comparison between
the “other brand” and Old Spice. The man says, “This test shows that Old Spice is the right
choice,” during this scene. The two deodorants are swiped down a shaved Caucasian chest. The
other brand goes on white and clumpy, but on the Old Spice side, chest hair magically sprouts
from where the Old Spice was applied. The word “MANLY” is superimposed on the bottom of
the Old Spice side as well. This hyperbole of manliness leaves no room for question about
which brand is better. The test does not even show anything real about Old Spice, but it is
clearly the right choice for men. Having chest hair is manly according to the superimposed text,
and since the narrating man has some chest hair, it must also be attractive. Associating Old
Spice with the chest hair is one way exaggeration was used to make it the attractive choice. The
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Old Spice Manly Test
chest hair also appeals to the younger audience that Old Spice is trying to capture from Axe.
Since many younger men are chest hair deficient, the ad pulls on their desire for that manly
badge of chest hair.
Overall, the commercial does a nice job at associating Old Spice with masculinity. It
builds off the masculinity to show attractiveness and ties that back to the product as well.
Exaggeration is utilized to exemplify points made throughout the advertisement. The man’s
physical appearance and his dialogue combine to highlight his attractiveness. The fact that he is
dirty and sweaty is unimportant because he smells good. He not only smells good, he smells like
a man.
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Old Spice Manly Test
References
Elliott, S. (2007, January 8). The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2010, from
nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/business/media/08adcol.html?_r=1