New Media for Old Spice

I have decided to monitor Old Spice for the media monitoring project. This idea came to me an hour into watching spokesman Isaiah Mustafa's hilarious Old Spice commercials. If a company that sells deodorant could keep me entertained and engaged for hours, they had to be doing something right! In order to monitor Old Spice, I used a number of sources thus far. My primary source has been Addict-O-Matic, followed by Ice Rocket , Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

 

Old Spice

In case you are unaware, Old Spice is a company focusing on male hygiene. They sell a variety of antiperspirant, deodorant, body wash, body spray and men's fragrances. While Old Spice has been around since 1938, the brand really started to become a household name when Proctor & Gamble bought it 1990. However, up until recently, Old Spice was associated with older men. Personally, I know my Grandpa always used Old Spice, and my father uses Old Spice as well. While this demographic is important, Old Spice's competitor Axe which was established in 1983 has been focusing on young men between the ages of 16-30. In a (successful) attempt to capture this target market while maintaining their older market as well, Old Spice introduced new commercials featuring Isaiah Mustafa. These commercials were and still are a hit, they also went viral, propelling Old Spice into the groundswell. 

Commercials

The following is the first commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa. It was released on television about a year ago.

Not only was it a hit with television viewers, it also exploded on the internet. As of Tuesday, March 15 the video already has 30,533, 560 views on YouTube. This is incredible for a television commercial, especially one advertising something as mundane and necessary as deodorant. With this commercial, Old Spice and spokesperson Isaiah Mustafa launched themselves into the groundswell, with people wanting to communicate with the Old Spice Man, and demanding more commercials. 

These commercials focused on women, but in a way unlike that of Axe. Old Spice presents itself as both a woman's man and a man's man product. It shows that by using Old Spice not only will women be attracted to you but that men will envy you as well. Furthermore, it does not portray women in a demeaning, sexist way. 

Old Spice's newest commercials focus on their new line of products for their Fresh Collection. Here is there latest commercial:

This commercial was released February 1st, 2011 and it already has 3, 977, 641 views as of Tuesday, March 15th. 

Since the release of these commercials, fans have been wondering how they are filmed. Rather than tweeting and Facebook commenting each question, Old Spice created a short behind the scenes YouTube video in response.

Twitter and YouTube

Twitter has been a valuable asset to the Old Spice campaign. As of the first week of March, Old Spice had over 120,000 followers on Twitter whereas AXE had little over 1,500 followers. Furthermore, the Old Spice Man Isaiah Mustafa is a huge force on twitter as well, having over 52,000 followers.

 Since the Old Spice commercials were such a hit, Old Spice created a Twitter campaign where Isaiah Mustafa would address fans' tweets through a YouTube video. This was better than a reply. Not only was Old Spice listening and talking with their fans, they were making personalized commercials for them as well.

Here are a few examples:

Summary

What I've found so far in my research is that people are talking about Old Spice. They are on Twitter and Facebook talking directly with Old Spice and Isaiah Mustafa, but even more impressively they are talking about Old Spice on their own. There are countless tweets and Facebook comments as well as blog entries that mention feeling manlier now that they use Old Spice or women saying that they wish they could buy Old Spice but since they can't they buy it for their boyfriends and husbands instead. By harnessing humor, creativity and the internet, Old Spice has created an unstoppable media presence that can only go up from here!