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.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More