How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made

This is brilliant marketing. They saw and seized an opportunity to let the internet hive mind further their own campaign. All they had to do was film him standing in a bathroom and multiple fan made voicemail generator sites sprung up within minutes. That is super cheap, super effective marketing, for sure... they let someone else do all the hard work! Absolutely incredible.

What they need to do is come up with a second wave of something that they can pull out in a few weeks or months to refresh these videos or build off them. That way they can keep stoking the fire and the process that gets them this coverage will start again.

Look away. now look back. I'm on a horse.

Weird, huh?

How else is your brand going to be talked about incessantly and shared over the Internet by millions across the world? All in a 24/48 hour period. No other brand is currently being talked and raved about currently and in the same volume.

I'd love to see the effect this campaign had on their sales.

I'm on a horse.

Seriously though, do you actually not understand that not everybody in the universe is hyper-rational and will occasionally make purchasing decisions based on ineffable considerations of "image", or are you merely rhetorically whining that not everybody in the universe is as hyper-rational as you imagine yourself to be?

Since they can't sell a concrete product as better than another one, they're selling the associated image - and betting that you will buy one of many indistinguishable products (theirs) because you like that image.

It's like Coke vs, Pepsi (or Sprite vs. 7-Up) - in a blind test, they taste pretty much the same. One isn't empirically better than the other. So instead they sell the images the drinks associate and the brands, and compete in that sphere.

I've seen ads here recently for deodorants that change smell over time, I guess that's one of that gimmiky "features".

Also these items are in the price range where I don't really want to waste my time thinking much about pros/cons so this advertising becomes more effective. As opposed to an item like a computer where I would analyse the specs of most of the components making advertising less useful.

The maxim exists because selling the sizzle works much better. The current Old Spice ad campaign is the best modern example of selling the sizzle.

1. You can't smell the product when you're in the store, so you have to know more about the product either through brand awareness or referral.

2. Like cologne, the smell you give off from a deodorant is about projection. Who you want to smell like is probably going to be more of a priority to potential customers than what you want to smell like.