In 2010, Proctor & Gamble launched the ‘Smell like a man, man’ campaign for the Old Spice brand and recruited the NFL star Isaiah Mustafa to play the role of the leading man - ladies this is what your man could be like.
It was a viral sensation, the YouTube video garnered 105 million views, 1.5 billion earned media impressions, a 2700% increase in Twitter followers and also led to 300% more traffic to the site in the first year. Impressive numbers.
Old Spice’s success can be understood through the framework of emotion, especially the high-arousal emotion of humour. The 76-year-old brand uncovered an emotional core around masculine attractiveness and infused it into high-arousal videos and social media campaigns.
⭕️ 1. They found their emotional core
First, Old Spice identified its emotional core. P&G worked with creative agencies to help reposition the brand to appeal to a younger and fresher male audience. We can understand the positioning through the 3 why’s.
❔ Why might people want Old Spice deodorant? Because it’s effective at covering body odour.
❔ Why? To smell better.
❔ Why? To feel more confident.
❔ Why? To feel more attractive and desirable.
🎯 Bingo.
Messages like ‘smell confident’ are all over the brand’s website. The Old Spice guy is the epitome of a strong successful and smug man. The ad features Isaiah in the bathroom, shirtless “Hello ladies”, then the scenery changes to him on a boat, holding an oyster and diamonds in his hand. This campaign is clever as it targets women who accounted for 60% of consumers buying men’s products. So if it’s women making the decisions, it’s women the ad needs to appeal to. Hence the half-naked, ripped man holding an aphrodisiac in one hand, and our best friend in the other.
In 2010, P&G wanted women to compare their boyfriend or husband to this ideal and make them more like him, by purchasing Old Spice.
📍 2. Create high-arousal touchpoints
Second, Old Spice created high-arousal follow-up touchpoints. The campaign of initial ads was followed up by the brand posting a call on social media to submit questions via Twitter and Facebook to be answered personally by the ‘Old Spice guy’. In the span of 48 hours, Old Spice produced 180 videos featuring Isaiah in the bathroom, tapping into humour with funny responses and low-budget props.
The fact that the ‘Old Spice guy’ called out users by their name, employed social currency, therefore adding to the high-arousal responses. Talk about User Generated Content.
The videos generated more than 60 million views in the first week. The campaign was an extreme success and accounted for 75% of all conversations online in their category, catapulting Old Spice to the #1 rank for men’s body wash. The brand’s fan engagement also grew by 800%.
The goal was to increase the brand sales by only 15%, but by Q2 of that year, they saw a 60% increase from the previous year’s sales.
Old Spice continues to infuse humour in its campaigns. To double down on their new positioning, Old Spice surveyed customers and discovered that almost half of the women borrow hair and body products from their significant other.
The campaign ‘Men have skin too’ depicts scenarios of partners and family members arguing over each other’s skin products and show that men aren’t the only ones who love Old Spice. The brand tapped into relatable and funny moments in a relationship. The campaign caught on, achieving 250 million views and contributing to an 11% growth rate.
For firms employing the strategy of emotion, Old Spice offers a few key learnings:
🔑 Features don’t sell products, benefits do. So dig deep into the underlying desires of why people buy their products and services. Old Spice doesn’t just sell antiperspirant, they sell confidence, masculinity and attractiveness.
🔑 Embed high-arousal touchpoints to encourage word of mouth for your brand. Old Spice did this by launching an interactive question campaign, giving online followers a chance to get a shout-out from the ‘Old Spice Man’, embedding a layer of social currency with humour.
See you next week as we dive into part 4 of the series; Visibility.
Have a contentful day 🌞
Emma