Old Spice pitch man now on a motorcycle
By Dan Sewell, Business Writer
CINCINNATI (AP) --The Old Spice man on a horse is back, and this time he’s on a motorcycle — still shirtless and showing plenty of bravado and humor.
The Procter & Gamble Co. brand of deodorant, body wash and other products for men has a second commercial featuring ex-football player Isaiah Mustafa. The first fast-paced ad, in which he draws viewers’ attention to his chest and self-confidence, has drawn more than 11 million YouTube views.
In the new 30-second spot titled “Questions,” he goes log rolling, dives from a waterfall and — of course — walks on water after a reprise of his cheery opening, “Hello, Ladies!”
The ad went online Wednesday morning (6/30), comes to movie theaters this weekend and hits national TV next week, P&G said.
The campaign by the Portland, Ore.-based ad agency Wieden + Kennedy has scored big with Mustafa as the hunky man who goes from shower to white horse. The first spot, “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like,” won the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and sudden visibility for Mustafa, 36, a former Arizona State University player who had a brief pro career.
Mustafa says he tried to channel the cool self-confidence and charm of actors such as Robert Wagner, James Brolin and Adam West, TV’s Batman, while staying true to Old Spice’s traditional “manly man” appeal.
“I really just wanted a very smooth, confident look,” said Mustafa, who had made scattered TV and movie appearances before the first Old Spice ad launched early last year.
He’d like to play the same kind of action-oriented, romance-minded figure in a TV series some day. But for now, he’s happy with the “smell like a man” role, which has people on the street asking if they can get a whiff or repeating the first ad’s tag line: “I’m on a horse.”
“I’ll do it as long as they want to do it,” said Mustafa. “It’s such a fun character.”
P&G’s seven-decade-old Old Spice brand has been revitalized in recent years by new products with names such as “Red Zone” and “High Endurance” and trendy marketing targeting a younger audience than its traditional gray-haired man’s after shave consumer. Actors Neil Patrick Harris and Will Ferrell and rapper-actor LL Cool J are among other recent celebrity spokesmen in lighthearted Old Spice ads.
James Moorhead, P&G brand manager for Old Spice, said the approach has been to embrace its heritage — keeping such touches as the trademark whistle at the end of ads — while updating with modern swagger and humor. He declined to divulge ad spending or revenue figures for the brand, but said P&G is happy with its market share growth.
“What I can tell you is that we are investing in Old Spice,” Moorhead said. “We’ve continued to have strong brand growth.”
Gary Stibel, marketing executive who heads the New England Consulting Group, said Old Spice was in danger of joining other older P&G brands, such as Noxzema skin cream, Sure deodorant and Comet cleanser, that have been sold off in recent years as the world’s largest consumer products maker focuses on brands with fast-growth potential.
“They have had creative talent on this brand who re-energized it at a critical point in time,” Stibel said. “They made it relevant and they made it cool.”
Tom Kuntz of MJZ directed both “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” and “Questions.” Both spots were shot by DP Neil Shapiro and edited by Carlos Arias of Rock Paper Scissors.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More