Rebranding of Old Spice

In the 1980s, Old Spice had a 17% market share that was not growing and in 1990, Proctor & Gamble bought Old Spice. The ship on the packaging was replaced with a yacht. However, Old Spice was still a stagnant brand. Before 2010, Old Spice was seen as a brand for older generations and millennials saw it as their father’s deodorant (DeMers, 2016). It soon started to target teenage boys to use the deodorant for the first time and made ads on TV using Brian Urlacher. The traffic to Old Spice website increased by 300% as Twitter followers increased 2,700% and subscribers of YouTube increased from 65,000 to 150,000 (Fast Company, 2014). In June 2010, the agency W+K initiated an interactive digital campaign taking the advantage of the popularity of Isaiah Mustafa, the “Old Spice Guy.

” The agency embarked on experimenting with real-time branding that featured the Old Spice Guy responding to fans online through personal video posts, what was known as the Old Spice Response Campaign (D&AD, 2018). In over two and half days 186 personal video messages were scripted, filmed and posted online to respond to fans’ comments on Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites. This campaign became one of the fastest growing and most popular online interactive advertising campaigns in history by recording more than 65 million views in less than one week. Trying a new way of advertising without knowing what the outcome would be was a risk taken by Old Spice. With realistic fear of investing new ads such as the Response Campaign without knowing how it would unfold and if the audience would be intrigued, Old Spice rose above those fears and exploited the new trends to improve their brand.