OLDER SPICE

In trying to unmask the question of why Old Spice does what it does to certain consumer targets we have to ask ourselves some questions. In Old Spice’s (Procter and Gamble’s) mission statement they say that their brand will “Improve the lives of the world’s consumers” You can see that in the television campaign ads. But we think it’s deeper than that. We think it may be more than just the man riding the horse backwards, confidently talking on your television screen. It actually began when Old spice originally targeted dads and grandpas. Since then they have shifted to younger men and women.

The correlation especially between the older target audience of the dads & grandpas to the newer target audience of the wives and girlfriends is actually quite strong. These women saw that their fathers and grandfathers used Old Spice when they were kids and that has a strong effect on them now when a commercial comes on telling you to buy your man some Old Spice deodorant. It’s essentially preselection; if it’s good enough for your dad then it is good enough for your man. It started with a vintage embodiment; an association between the consumer and the brand. This relationship between the consumer and the brand led to a trust. The classic reputation of Old Spice is the foundation of why people consume it. But there’s a lot more to it than that and as we do more research and dig deeper we will find out more and answer more questions.

When looking at the differential advantages that Old Spice has over its competitors (Axe and Right Guard being a couple of its biggest) we find that Old Spice delivers a specific benefit to the target audience women ages (18-35). The benefit is that their man will become the kind of man that every girl dreams about. Old Spice knows that women often times buy their significant other’s grooming products. Axe and Right Guard doesn’t seem to follow this same route. I wonder why? Therefore Old Spice was able to deliver a specific benefit to that customer segment that its competitors didn’t through its strength of brand association.

When looking at the contextual issues (5Cs) of the old spice campaign we started to uncover that the timing was right when they began their super bowl ads of be the man your man could smell like. First they came in during the Super bowl; quickly recognizing that it would be a huge payoff. Second it was during the time when social media was skyrocketing. People were tweeting about the ad and posting about it on their facebook (women especially). Social media was such a big platform for Old Spice and they adapted to the technology showing how they could move with the context.