Matthew Burns:
Welcome back everyone. Steve, I say this a lot. You are one of my favorite strategists that we have within the Wizard of Ads, but you’re also highly motivated to learn as much as you possibly can about everything and anything, especially when it’s in the marketing world, your podcast highlights at the Empire Builders podcast.

This ad that we want to talk about, and I’ll say it’s the Old Spice ad, “I’m on a horse,” which everybody remembers because it’s the last line, but it’s a fantastic ad. Before we get people to watch it, I’d actually rather talk about it first and then play at the end.

Stephen Semple:
All right. We’re going to do it a little differently.

Matthew Burns:
A little differently. Because, Procter & Gamble, who at the time owned Old Spice, I don’t know if they still do, I’ll be honest with you.

Stephen Semple:
No, I think they still do.

Matthew Burns:
You told me this, I’m bringing it up to set you up, is they were going to dump the brand.

Stephen Semple:
Oh, yeah.

Matthew Burns:
They were getting really close, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Old Spice was doing terribly. Procter & Gamble is a history of, basically, if they’re not one number one or number two in a space, they just get rid of it, so Old Spice was on the ropes. They were very, very serious about getting rid of Old Spice. So much so that there’s an advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy, that they had talked to a number of times, because fabulous agency, but they had this rule similar to us where it’s like, you’re not changing.

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
And that really never sat well with Procter & Gamble. They wanted to be able to have input into the ads, which is fine, that’s their right. But Wieden+Kennedy was like, “No, it doesn’t work that way with us.” So they finally reached the stage with Old Spice, and they went, “You know what? What have we got to lose? Either this campaign works and revitalizes the brand, or we shut the brand down.”

Matthew Burns:
That’s right.

Stephen Semple:
“We are literally at the stage of we’ve got nothing to lose.” It’s interesting, I’ve been having some conversations with some various companies, private equity companies, things like that, and I’ve said to them, “Yeah, bring us your dogs. Bring us the ones that you’ve got nothing, that you’re literally, ‘I can’t figure out why…’ and let’s see what we can do.”

Matthew Burns:
No, you also did that with No Bull. And it’s all used RVs.

Stephen Semple:
Right.

Matthew Burns:
You said, “Give us the one that’s not moving. Let us advertise that one, and we’ll show you what we can do.”

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. “Bring this a piece of crap you can’t move. Let us advertise it the way we want to advertise it,” and it sold in a couple of days. Boom. But he had nothing to lose, because it wasn’t moving.

Matthew Burns:
Right. Exactly.

Stephen Semple:
Anyway, so Procter & Gamble had reached that stage with Old Spice. It was gone. Here’s the other thing that was discovered. Again, you’ve got to remember, the market has shifted. This was like over a decade ago.

Matthew Burns:
Right.

Stephen Semple:
This ad was also very strategic, because body washes at that time were being bought by women, and whatever was in the shower, the guy used. Old Spice, up to that, the ads had been targeted at men. What they did in this ad, this ad is very deeply targeted at the women in the household who actually make the choice in terms of what body wash is being used.

Matthew Burns:
I’m going to play the ad now, because that’s a great segue into the ad. Okay, so here we go.

Isaiah Mustafa:
Hello ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me. But if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me.

Look down. Back up. Where are you? You are on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse.

Matthew Burns:
I’m not that dude, but if my wife asked me to wash with that because that’s what she wanted to envision while we were intimate, I’d wash with it. I won’t argue.

Stephen Semple:
You’re not proud.

Matthew Burns:
Whatever gets us there. I just want to be there. I want to be part of the show. Wow. That’s what I mean. This is such a good ad. I know it’s been talked about, and I know other people have talked about it, but the idea here is that entertainment directed only to women… We know the ad and we’re marketing guys, so we like the ad because of the tricks and the way that they go with the storytelling and everything else. This is an ad meant for women, for women to make a decision and go out and shop. I mean, it’s a 10-year-old or more ad.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
And so the time was, women took care of that portion of the work for the household, as they put it in the shower. Guys don’t care. We’re just, “We clean enough? Yeah, let’s go.” Right? He says, “Your man’s not me, but he could smell like me.” That’s the words. “He could smell like me.”

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, “The man your man can smell like.”

Matthew Burns:
Smell like.

Stephen Semple:
That’s the exact line. “The man your man can smell like.” Even that is delivered, really, it’s not like, oh, you can smell like him, you can smell like me. “The man your man can smell like,” is a great line.

Matthew Burns:
My God.

Stephen Semple:
That’s the line. You’re on a boat with the man your man can smell like.

Matthew Burns:
And diamonds showering down from the clam shell. Inside is tickets. What were the tickets for?

Stephen Semple:
Your “Tickets for that thing that you want to go to.” That’s my favorite line. “For the thing that you want to go to.” Now that, I think, is the one line that is delivered for any guy who’s paying attention. Right? Because do I know which one? No. That thing. Whatever. “What’d you do?” “I got tickets to this Broadway play.” “What’s the thing?” “I don’t know. She just wanted to go. It’s that thing. That thing that she wanted to go to.” Right?

Matthew Burns:
Right. Exactly. I think you’re just very brilliant in observing that. That’s the reason why we would continue to watch as men. We would continue to watch that, because what other smart ass thing is this guy going to actually throw shade? Because that was a little bit of shade to the woman. We don’t care what the thing is you want to go see, but we have the tickets for the thing you want to go see.

I said this to you off camera, and I’m going to say it for everybody else. Right away, they’re talking about Old Spice, and they’re letting you know what the brand is about, and then they get in the middle, and it’s just entertainment. Your focus is over here and something changes over here. The best part about this ad, and you said it, Mick Torbay, one of our other partners, he did a whole in-depth dive on this thing. This ad from tip to tail was shot in one take. A single take. I know they didn’t do it in just one take. It took them a while to get it perfect, because that was a lot to do, but the thing’s moving and blah, blah, blah, and he’s on a beach. How does he go from a shower on a horse, on a beach?

Stephen Semple:
They even did a thing where they wanted the horse to do this little head thing when it came over to him so that people would know that it’s a real horse.

Matthew Burns:
Oh.

Stephen Semple:
The other part that people don’t realize with this ad, this ad also had another technique that we like to use, which is called random entry.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, this is true. Yep.

Stephen Semple:
Random entry is this whole idea of starting in this weird place, and it gets people’s attention. The first line is, “Look down. Back up. Where are you?” Think about, that’s a weird start. “Look down. Back up. Where are you? You’re on a boat with the man that your man could smell like.” Weird entry. “Look down. Look back up.”

Matthew Burns:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Right? “Where are you? What’s in your hand? Back at me.” Right?

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Yeah. No, and that’s what I’m saying. There’s so much distraction going on, so they can do what they need to do to make the thing work, but yet, it’s also this, like you said, it’s random entry, this third-gravitating body, it’s these things that fit but don’t fit. At the end of it, you’re going like, “What just happened?” “Yeah, I want my man to smell like that.”

Stephen Semple:
And you know what they did not talk about? The scent.

Matthew Burns:
No. At all. You have no idea what it smells like.

Stephen Semple:
Just aspirational.

Matthew Burns:
Him.

Stephen Semple:
“I want my man to be more like him.”

Matthew Burns:
I know, listen, sex sells, and people talk about doing that too far, but I’m just thinking it’s about time they used a man to sell sex as opposed to always it being the other way around.

Stephen Semple:
Here’s the other thing. It is also permission, because the hesitation is, “Oh, that’s girly.” That dude’s not girly at all.

Matthew Burns:
At all.

Stephen Semple:
He is manly, and he is confident, and he’s good-looking, and he knows it. He walks into a room, and he owns that room. If he can wear that stuff that smells that way, so the hell can you.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right. This was a very successful ad.

Stephen Semple:
Hugely.

Matthew Burns:
They didn’t sell off the brand. They didn’t get rid of it.

Stephen Semple:
No.

Matthew Burns:
Right? That’s why I thought they sold it, and you’re like, “No, they haven’t sold it yet.” You think they still own it. And it brought this brand, which is a very old, stale brand, back into the limelight and popular. I don’t think they could have done it by saying, “Hey, we’ve got this thing that’s going to help you smell more like a man.” If they had said, “We’ve got a thing that’s going to help you smell more like a man, not like your woman.” “Hey, stop using your woman’s…” It would’ve been insulting and strange. And women are like, “Yeah, no, I just need you to stop smelling like me. I want you to smell like a man.” Procter and Gamble didn’t want to say yes to this, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Matthew Burns:
It was hard for them to get to say yes to this, because it’s that strange of a way to communicate. So, no, I think it’s a brilliant ad.

Stephen Semple:
It’s interesting, when you look at how they advertise today, it’s very different. But I think that whole thing of men wearing scented body wash got broken, that resistance to doing it got broken, and now it’s more accepted, so the ads are now different than what they used to be. But there’s even some, you know how these things that rate ads out there, and it’s rated in terms of one of the top 10 most effective commercials ever done.

Matthew Burns:
Well then, I guess it was a good one to talk about.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Thanks for not telling us that at the beginning of this whole thing, Steve

Listen guys, we love sharing these things and finding ads to highlight and talk about what they did or what we believe that they did right and what they did wrong. If you have an ad that you love and you would like us to talk about it, drop it into the notes. We want to know about it. Subscribe, push Like, tell your family members. Maybe grandma wants to remember some of those old ads that she used to watch. Anyway, if you’re following because you’re a marketer, hit us up. If you’re following us because you’re interested in marketing, hit us up. If you just want more of this stuff, keep following. Appreciate you guys.

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