The Appeal of the Old Spice Man Commercials Essay

There are bodily hygiene advertisements in almost every magazine, TV station, radio station, billboards, and even postal mail. Every one of them is different and is trying to send a different message to a certain group that the product would most likely appeal to. The 0ctober 2011 issue number 1141 of Rolling Stone magazine there is an ad for Old spice men’s soaps, cologne, and deodorant that is a very interesting to the college age kids and music enthusiast that would normally read it. Through the advertisements use of layout and models, Old Spice has effectively caught the eyes of the many people that would stumble across it.

Authors can convey abstract ideas or non-existent characters to life with the assistance of rhetorical devices by communicating the nature of emotions to the intended audience. Allowing the audience to connect and relate with the abstract ideas. The usage of apostrophe can be found in literature and even in media. The usage of apostrophe is most evident within the Old Spice commercials. Isaiah Mustafa plays the role as the “man your man could smell like” in the commercial, who narrates and performs a simple monolog throughout. Mustafa can directly connect with the audience with the assistance of “breaking the fourth wall,” to guide their directions and appeal to their emotions. As a marketing technique, the motives of these Old Spice commercial is an attempt to appeal to the female audience whereas typically it is geared towards men.

Perfume advertisements, both in magazines and in television, involve selling more than just the scent. It taps into the human psyche and tries to sell the perfume by linking the brand with desirable ideas such as femininity, masculinity, love, passion, etc. Perfume advertisement usually tries to appeal to the other senses. It usually tries to sell sex by advertising with a beautiful and sexy model or a celebrity in a desirable location. Advertisers employ attractive people and use sex to grab attention and stimulate desire. Perfume advertisements evoke fantasy and offer a life

The commercial “Questions” advertising Old Spice opens with Isaiah Mustafa also known as the man your man can smell like in nothing but a towel. He starts by addressing the women of the world with a suggestive “hello ladies” and continuing to further question women on what they want in a man. It then uses the power of rhetorical strategies such as ethos and pathos, with humor and gender stereotypes to connect with the target audience and convince them Old Spice is the product for them. The narrator initially addresses women appealing to their desire to make their man more attractive, while targeting men who want to be more attractive to women. Old Spice commercials offer little logic or statistics to back their product, however their use of sex appeal and humor play into peoples emotions perhaps making them feel insecure which has proven to be highly effective in selling this brand.

The saddening feeling at the end of the commercial where the narrator is in his bathroom, is an indirect way of appealing to pathos in this commercial. As an audience, you feel sorry for him, missing his chance with “Susan Glenn”. Therefore, of course you don’t want the same thing to happen to you and miss the girl of your dream because you don’t smell good, from not

Rhetoric is a common method used by many people involved in a company’s marketing, the purpose is to discretely convey certain feelings towards an audience. Commercials and advertisements are more than likely the most common of these as many of us watch television and thus are exposed to many rhetoric commercials without realizing, such as the Old Spice commercials. The old spice commercials tend to appeal towards not only men but also women. During the commercial, most of the scenery tends to be in tropical places which creates a feeling of paradise. This scenery appeals to the women but as the rhetorician challenges the men’s masculinity throughout the commercial it also appeals to men. Men will view the commercial as a challenge to please

In the old spice commercial “Smell like a Man, Man”, Isaiah Mustafa asks his audience if they want a man who can bake them a gourmet cake in a dream kitchen that he built with his own hands. He then goes on to answer that question by saying of course you do. He asks his target audience this unusual question along with a series of other funny, sarcastic questions as he moves from frame to frame while also continuing to define the image of a so called “perfect man”. The commercial thus begins with a seemingly attractive, man (Isaiah Mustafa) standing in a towel without a shirt, on the beach grasping a bottle of Old Spice. He states that he being an attractive model man is because of the use Old Spice body wash.

Advertisements these days use many different techniques in order to sell a product. The Old Spice Company uses several methods to convey a message and sell their product. Old Spice commercials are well known for using the famous Isaiah Mustafa, wrapped in just a towel, to talk about the company’s product. While Mustafa walks and talks, the background and setting of the commercial changes and the actor never loses eye contact. The product is always shown throughout the entire commercial. By combining all the elements of gender stereotyping, sexual imagery, and racial innuendoes, Old Spice is able to convey a message to sell their hygienic products.

Do you ever have to question if you're man enough for society? Do you ever see advertisements that make you take another look at yourself? These are the questions that large advertising companies like the fragrance brand Old Spice try to target in order to get you, the consumer, to buy their product. Old Spice as a whole attempts to advertise their product in such a way that they try and get their customers to question themselves as a person to get them to buy their product. Old Spice has gotten their reputation as being the thing for “men”.

The commercial shown in figure 1 is for a perfume called ‘the one gentleman’ which Matthew Mcconaughey a well-known actor did for Dolce & Gabbana, a trade mark for designer products. The commercial tells us that this is a body spray to use when one wants to be seen as a gentleman. In reality a gentleman is not a man who just uses this body spray, but a man is seen as a gentleman by certain attributes society sees as being acceptable. Commercials like these can really have an impact because the viewer wants to look like the person with the body spray, and themselves be perceived as a gentleman. The unspoken

Old Spice developed a few strategies to revamp the brand image. First, they decided to create 3 lines of product, each with different features (Marketing Conference Sevices, 2011.). They then roped in the award-winning advertising agency, Wieden + Kennedy to aid the company in developing their media campaign. Wieden + Kennedy were known for coming up with Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign (Baboushkin, 2013). Old Spice, with the advice of Wieden + Kennedy then decided to air their ads on Youtube during the Superbowl weekend to create a “Superbowl impact” (Effie Awards, 2011). Their next move was to air the ads on television. With both the online and TV ads, Old Spice wanted to maintain certain traits associated with the brand such as the trademark whistle at the end of ads but at the same time to revamp the ad by adding in some “clever writing and picture-perfect casting” and developing a good story with

Old Spice is very blatant in the way they attract their customers. An obvious example is The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial. In this advertisement Old Spice envisions their audience to be anyone who is in a relationship or trying to be in relationship. The more obvious targeted audience is the female audience. To attract the female audience they put an attractive man in the commercials and try to make it seem that if their “man” uses old spice body washes their “man” will be like him.

“Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady” (“Old Spice”). Whenever a company produces a commercial they will use a variety of strategies and techniques to catch your attention to get you to purchase their product. Old Spice is a company that specializes in male hygiene, such as shampoo, deodorant and body-wash. During the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercial they are advertising a new body-wash, Red Zone. During the commercial they use gender stereotypes, humor, and rhetorical strategies in order to persuade the audience and to switch to Old Spice and buy their Red Zone body wash. Old Spice relies on showing the ideal male body, using humor and using sex appeal to get people to buy their product, Red Zone.

Old Spice an American advertising campaign developed by ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in 2010 featuring Isaiah Mustafa became popular after the first advertisement, The Man your Man could smell like, went viral. Which is owned by Procter & Gamble Men’s grooming products such as deodorants and antiperspirants, shampoos, body washes and soaps. Initially launched as Early American Old Spice by William Lightfoot Schultz’s soap and toiletries company, Shulton inc., in 1937, it was first targeted to women, with the men’s product only being released before Christmas at the end of that year.

Smelling Like a Man “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across a thousand miles and all the years you have lived.” This quote said by Helen Keller really brings out the power of the sense of smell. Granted she was blind and deaf so she used the sense of smell a lot, but in our new new world smelling good is still very important. In the ad “Smell Like a Man, Man” Old Spice argues that their body wash is the body wash that will make you smell like a man. In particular the man that is most desirable to women.