“Smell like a Man, Man”
Somehow a towel wearing man who stares at you for 30 seconds while criticizing the man in your life choice of body wash became a viral commercial that inspired an entire campaign based around this character, numerous parodies, and an 11% growth in sales for Old Spice. Just how did this ad for Old Spice’s Red Zone After Hours Body Wash achieve all of this with only 30 seconds. Let’s explore it.
Based on all that this 30-second commercial achieved there have to be some pretty impressive persuasive appeals (ethos, logos, and pathos) throughout (or maybe we’re just easily influenced as consumers and will buy whatever the TV tells us to buy.) Ethos works in this commercial through entirely superficial means. We don’t know if this man telling us about ourselves is qualified enough to be telling us how a new body wash will change us, but he looks like he could. He’s this attractive, confident man who in a sense tricks the viewer into believing that he knows exactly what he’s talking about.
Pathos works here almost in the same way that ethos does (superficially). The emotions invoked to the targeted female audience could range from lust (the half-naked man with all these expensive items) to envy ( your significant other doesn’t have a boat or tickets to your favorite show or diamonds). It makes women associate wealth and attractiveness with Old Spice so that when they are out shopping for their boyfriend, they’re going to be more inclined to pick up Old Spice. For men, it could make men who do use “lady” fragrances feel embarrassed and less like a man, which in turn would cause them to go and buy the more “manly” scent advertised. It plays with men’s fragile masculinity to convince them to buy the product.
Logos is the persuasive appeal that’s definitely lacking in my opinion. There’s no real logic to the commercial at all and it’s pretty stupid. The argument that if your man smelled like me, he could do all of this for you, holds no truth. We obviously know that changing what a guy smells like isn’t going to give him a boat, or diamonds or a horse. I think the logos aspect could have been improved, but I also think that the lack of logic is what makes this commercial appeal so much to the masses.
Overall the persuasive appeals present had to have been pretty effective for this commercial to gain the traction that it did back in 2010. This may be because videos of this type were relatively new (illogical but attention grabbing videos ) and people thought it was funny and memorable, the way that we think the same of vines. Truth be told if I were in the market for new men’s body wash I would probably buy Old Spice. This is because the commercial was so idiotic and stupid that I would remember it when I’m comparing brands. Old spice achieved what they wanted with this commercial. It’s so trivial and odd that it can’t help but stick out in the consumer’s mind.