Critical Thinking WIN: The Old Spice Man

Have you noticed the increased presence of Old Spice these days? I’m seeing the Old Spice Man everywhere — on TV, in magazines even all over Twitter. The New York Times’ article, “Get Clean. Smell Good. It’s Not Unmanly,” helped explain this phenomenon. The basic gist of things is, as you may have guessed, marketing.

I can only assume that behind closed doors, the Old Spice marketing & advertising team used their critical thinking skills to achieve this increase in popularity. Why do I feel comfortable making such an assumption? I can see the RED Model at work!

Old Spice, as a brand, has been around for quite a while (72 years to be exact)! Perhaps the marketing team was able to recognize the bias consumers have about such an old brand.

The Old Spice product line is for men but their research suggests that about 70% of people buying their products are women. Proctor & Gamble had to consider the relevance of this information. This resulted in a new campaign, which features the Old Spice Man, that was created to appeal to both men & women.

But what about the most recent attention the Old Spice brand has received this week?

The Old Spice Man answered questions from Twitter & Facebook with response YouTube videos. In two days (July 13-14) 65 videos were published on the Old Spice YouTube channel, including one that helped someone propose to his fiancée (she said yes!). This may not seem monumental until you realize that these videos have over 5 million views and the @OldSpice Twitter following grew from 3,000 to over 65,000.

Sure, there is a lot of strategizing happening to differentiate the Old Spice brand from Axe. But the brand’s recent activities can nicely overlap the RED Model.

Take a few minutes and think about how they: