The body wash campaign “touches on a very subtle but powerful sentiment that is bubbling under the surface of American culture now, and that is that it’s O.K. to be a man,” said Rob Frankel, author of “The Revenge of Brand X.” Mr. Frankel compared the spots to those from a competing men’s brand, Axe, which is known for over-the-top commercials in which men who use the products become suddenly irresistible to scantily clad women.
“Axe turns women into scent-sniffing bimbos and nymphomaniacs and is more about, ‘Use our product and it will enhance your sex appeal,’ ” said Mr. Frankel. “But Old Spice goes to your own character, and they’re really reaffirming masculinity.”
In a posting on the Web site Jezebel shortly after the first ad was introduced in February, Irin Carmon wrote about its appeal.
“Among the reasons the ‘I’m on a horse’ ad quickly became a viral sensation — a clever script, some surreal transitions, Mustafa’s magnetism — had to be the fact that women could enjoy it without feeling like we were participating in our own diminishment,” Ms. Carmon wrote.
Old Spice spent $7.5 million advertising body wash in 2009, well under the $30 million spent by Axe body wash, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. But in the first quarter of 2010 Old Spice advertised far more aggressively, spending $11.4 million to Axe’s $3.6 million.
Body wash sales, including women’s and unisex varieties, grew to $755 million in 2009, from $500 million in 2004, an increase of 51 percent, according to a 2009 report by Mintel, the market research firm.
“Guys have been a little slower to adopt body wash because early on they didn’t feel like it got them as clean as bar soap,” said James Moorehead, vice president of marketing at Old Spice, which introduced body wash in 2003.
Some men told marketers they were reluctant to use the nylon webbing sponges called “poufs,” which raise a lather and clean more effectively but were off-putting because of their dainty name and appearance. In 2009 Old Spice introduced a pouf in a rubber grip and called it a Deck Scrubber.
“An experienced seaman knows the gentler sex is unlikely to board a vessel whose deck, galley and undercarriage has not been scrubbed as clean as the shiny inside part of an oyster shell,” states the package. (Axe introduced its own manly pouf, called the Detailer, in 2008)
“It took a little time for guys to get over the pouf,” Mr. Moorehead said.
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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
