IMC Program of Old Spice!

Submitted by:
Utsav Gahtori
SAP ID: 80011314014
Brief Company History:
The first Old Spice product, American Old Spice was launched for women in 1937. Old spice for men
was launched in 1938. All of the Old Spice products were launched by Shulton Company that was
founded by William Lightfoot Schultz. In 1990, Procter & Gamble purchased the Old Spice from the
Shulton Company.
Procter & Gamble, in 2002, relaunched the brand but it began to edge out from the 12-24 age market by
the deodorant brand Axe.
Integrated Marketing Communication Program of Old Spice:
Being a brand which was associated with fathers and grandfathers, it was really difficult for Old Spice to
come up with an IMC which could revive the brand. It did so by entirely changing the target market,
branding strategy, positioning, and the entire integrated marketing communication.
The new Old Spice IMC basically included advertising, marketing campaigns, interactive marketing,
use of social media and publicity.
Through the new IMC program of Old Spice, it tried to target young age group males who have just
entered their manhood. So, when they said So ladies, does your man smell like an Old Spice man,
they are dual targeting. First, they are targeting women as it was found by a study that 75% of the body
wash and other products are purchased by women. Secondly, when a guy like Isaiah Mustafa says this,
one gets persuaded that he have to have this product.
Now, well look into the various campaigns run by Old Spice and its implications as an IMC program.
Smell like a man, man!
Old Spice media campaign of Smell like a man, man! was new, refreshing, witty, humorous and at the
same time perfectly crafted. According to Nielsen data, overall sales of Old Spice rose to 106% in 2010.
Later in July 2010, Old Spice released a sequel to the Smell like a Man, Man campaign to further build
buzz, inviting consumers to submit questions via Twitter and Facebook to be answered personally by
Mustafa.
According to Procter and Gamble, more than 2,000 people submitted questions in a 48-hour period
setting new benchmarks for consumer engagement. This campaign involved working with Weiden +
Kennedy, the advertisement agency of Old Spice, to develop and coordinate 186 customized video
responses to the respondents which included celebrities and other social media influencers, including

Perez Hilton, Ellen DeGeneres, and Alyssa Milano, who asked Mustafa questions via Twitter, Facebook
and other social media sites.
So, in the campaign, Old Spice not only accomplished the task of social media campaigning, it also got
publicity through celebs like Perez Hilton.
In the mid of 2011, Old Spice was faced with the task of continuing the campaign without it getting stale.
So, they decided to introduce a story line and launched the New Old Spice Guy (Fabio), another
character who wanted to challenge the Old Spice guy to a duel Mano a Mano.
To engage with the viewers, viewers were asked to vote to decide who their favorite Old Spice Guy was
and
be
able
to
influence
the
duel.
The campaign achieved its goal and reports indicated a sales increase of 107% for Old Spice around the
time of the first campaign.
Smellcome to Manhood:
Another advertisement campaign which Old Spice followed was that mothers of young men are not
ready for their teenage boys to grow up and start doing many things such as dating and moving on to as
young men. Old Spice has begun to brand itself as a product that will make boys grown up men,
hence the slogan Smellcome to Manhood.
Old Spice in India:
In India, Milind Soman, Indias first super model, was selected as the face of Old Spice. In India, Old Spice
concentrated on selling more of its deodorants which led to the Smell Mantastic Campaign. This
campaign was similar on the lines of the campaigns which were used in other countries. It involved
connecting with the customers in a witty, humorous and unique way.
Another campaign was Mantastic Man and Smell of Success. These all were similar to each other,
leading to less interest from the customers.
#WhatsInTheTub:
To kill the boredom of these ads, Old Spice India came up with social media campaign #WhatsInTheTub.
The name itself is a spoof of the movie, Seven, whose popular dialog was Whats in the Box.
#WhatsInTheTub involves users to guess the contents of the tub before revealing a new ad. Its a good
way to generate curiosity and increase interaction with the audience on a personal level.
This whole campaign aimed at connecting with the audience at a level at which they could easily relate
with. So, Old Spice India targeted movies and their spoofs. The use of movie posters is an interesting
addition to the quirky communication, especially with that spoof visual on Dabangg (tubangg). Also, just
like Isaiah Mustafas famous line Im on a horse, in India, it was changed to Im in a tub.
Most of the part of this campaign relied upon posters i.e. print media and use of social websites like
Facebook and Twitter.

Justification and Results:

1) The content was spot on!
All the Old Spice campaign success lies within the content of the video, its simple, tempting, and witty
and at the same time delivers an Old Spice Guy Attitude. It tempted the people into sharing it and
replicating it with their own spoofs. Old Spice delivered one thing via these campaigns; it doesnt need a
fancy ad to attract the audience. Most of the ads includes simple writing and direction and thats make it
a perfect candidate for going viral! Just after the release of the videos, YouTube was littered with
comments and spoofs of the video. As it is said, any publicity is good publicity, Old Spice succeeded in
leaving
an
imprint
of
the
ads
in
the
minds
of
the
audience.

2) It engaged with the audience!

Its true that a campaign must have a strong content, but it doesnt stay fresh for a longer time and is
bound to fade away. Campaigns like Smell like a man, man! and the dual between the Old Spice Guys
garnered responses from social media. So, rather than tweeting back or sharing pictures on Facebook,
the advertisement agency of Old Spice took it to another level. They began engaging with the audience
through short personalized video responses which was met with a delight by the audience.
3) It gained momentum; fast!
The utmost factor leading to a faster momentum was the interaction by the high profile celebrities like
Ellen DeGeneres, Perez Hilton and Alyssa Milano. A very shrewd move for these campaigns was that it
was able to connect with the fan bases of these celebrities, thus widening the audience and get free
celebrity publicity and endorsement.

Results:
The biggest achievement for Old Spice could be reflected via following facts and figures.
In the first day alone, the Response Campaign generated 5.9 million YouTube views, more than Osamas
victory
speech
had
achieved
in
its
first
24
hours.
On day two, Old Spice YouTube channel owned eight out of the 11 most popular videos on the web at
that
very
particular
time.
By day three, views had risen to more than 20 million, a figure that doubled within a week.

Sources:
1) https://prezi.com/i0rpylhsg39h/old-spice-integrated-marketing-communications/
2) https://jennambeach.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/jbeach_613_w3.pdf