The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2010
Old Spice's absurd 'Man Your Man' spot and 186 live-response videos revive a fading brand
A deadpan shirtless pitchman makes body wash worth sharing; weeks later W+K answers fans with 186 real-time videos, doubling sales by July 2010.
Old Spice (Procter & Gamble) · Wieden+Kennedy
What it had to solve
Old Spice body wash launched in 2003, but by 2006 the brand was losing ground in a growing category. W+K discovered that women buy more than half of men's body wash, so the real audience was couples — the challenge was to make a low-interest product worth a conversation.
How it works
In February 2010, Wieden+Kennedy launched a new Old Spice campaign, 'Smell Like a Man, Man', built around one 30-second film. Isaiah Mustafa, a former NFL player, delivered a rapid-fire monologue about tickets, diamonds, sailing lessons and smelling like Old Spice 'and not a lady' — absurdist, seamless and instantly quotable. It went online before Super Bowl weekend and aired on television the day after the game.
The film was aimed at a discovery W+K had made: women buy more than 50% of men's body wash, so the campaign had to start a conversation between couples. Instead of a conventional follow-up, the agency built a live response campaign. In two and a half days, a team of writers, digital strategists and developers filmed 186 personalised videos of the Old Spice Guy answering questions pulled from Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, with a custom system feeding comments to writers and a teleprompter.
The response videos were posted in near real time — some took just 10 to 15 minutes from idea to upload. The campaign drew 5.9 million YouTube views on day one, more than 65 million in total, and generated over a billion earned impressions. By May 2010, Red Zone body wash sales were up 60% year on year; by July they had doubled, and the brand ended 2010 as the No.1 men's body wash brand in the US.
Why it lands
- W+K aimed the work at the actual buyer — women — with humour both halves of a couple could share, instead of pitching deodorant to men directly.
- The single-take absurdist format was made to be rewatched and quoted, giving a low-interest product a reason to be passed around.
- Turning the follow-up into a live reply-to-fans format made the brand feel present in real time and generated its own news cycle.
- The custom production system let the team answer in minutes, so speed itself became part of the entertainment.
What it did
Sales of Old Spice Red Zone body wash rose 60% year-on-year by May 2010 and doubled by July; the brand captured 75% of category conversations. The response campaign drew 5.9 million YouTube views on day one, more than 65 million in total, and over a billion earned impressions.
What you can take
In a low-interest category, entertainment has to be so good people pass it on; then turn that attention into a live two-way format so the brand keeps generating its own conversation.
Since then
The campaign made Old Spice the No.1 men's body wash brand in the US by the end of 2010, a position it held for years. Isaiah Mustafa reprised the Old Spice Guy in follow-up work and the character became a pop-culture fixture; Advertising Age later named the campaign among the top campaigns of the 21st century, and W+K's work page still presents it as proof that entertainment can carry a low-interest brand.
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