Old Spice Commercial featuring Terry Crews Ad Analysis

Introduction:
Old Spice is a famous hygiene product that provides shower gel, shaving gel, deodorant, electric shavers, cologne, and aftershave products for male consumers.  Old Spice targets the male audience and even the female audience through strategic trickery.  Old Spice most successfully advertises through commercials on TV and on media based websites such as YouTube.  Just like other companies, Old Spice uses a variety of methods to appeal to people that can be as obvious as humor, or as subliminal as color choices.  The iconic actor Terry Crews sells these products, as well as appeals to a younger and middle aged audience.

The Author
The Shulton Company founded by William Lightfoot Schultz in 1934 produced Old Spice products for both women and men.  Sometime during the June of 1990 Procter & Gamble purchased the company.  Since being purchased they have continued to produce many new products and employ many creative designers.  The  master minds behind the Terry Crews commercials were Wieden + Kennedy.

The Audience
Old Spice targets the male audience from teenagers to older men.  Throughout the commercials Terry Crews stands shirtless screaming about how powerful the product he advertises can be.  Terry Crews has a extensive resume that includes being an NFL star to a comedic actor.  For older generations Terry Crews represents a sports star, who exhibits muscles, strength, and success.  For younger generations Terry Crews symbolizes humor from roles in movies such as White Chicks, and Bridesmaids. Because of Terry Crew's role in Bridesmaids, female audiences are targeted as well.

Get Shaved in the Face
In the commercial, "Get Shaved In the Face"  Terry Crews is inside a blue bathroom, preparing to shave advertising the electric shaver.  Employing the blue bathroom helps create a more vibrant pop in the deep red of the old spice shaver.  The bathroom sets up the idea of where the electric shaver would be used in daily life for the male audience. When starting the commercial Terry Crews represents a hair on its way to be shaved.  Both as a hair and the being shaving the hair, Terry Crews stands shirtless in tight track shorts.  As the commercial progress the use of humor is employed as Terry begins to shave his face.  Alternating between the universe in which Terry Crews is a stubborn facial hair and a universe where Terry Crews is the person shaving the hair, they scream back and forth before eventually the stubborn facial hair succumbs to the powerful electric shaver.  This method creates a memorable humorous event that will stick with an audience in the future when shopping or relaying the humorous commercial to friends.  At the end of the commercial a creative jingle is belted by Terry Crews.  Advertising the power behind the electric shaver explains why the designers chose the articulation and accented nature of the jingle.  Rather than being sang delicately, the jingle is thrusted upon the audience aggressively.


Blown Mind
Blown Mind is a commercial starring Terry Crews that advertises the power behind the deodorant spray.
The setting is in a bathroom with pastel colors which help create he red in the old spice product, and the skin color of Terry Crews to pop out in a bold "powerful" view. As with other commercials staring Terry Crews he is constantly yelling about the product with force.  The product is stated to be so powerful that it will blow minds.  After stating this Terry Crew's head opens up and his mind takes flight in front of him.  In a humourous explosion involving Terry Crews Screaming "NOOOOOOO", the floating brain explodes. After the brain exploding, Terry continues to advertise the product but is speaking in gibberish.  Captions appear on the screen translating his gurgled attempt at boasting the product.   At the end of the commercial the phrase "Smell is Power" appears in a Las Vegas Style lettering.  As these light up and glow on the page, two fist with rockets at the end proceed to crash into a line of three cans of spray deodorant.  The fist compress the deodorant and cause the product to explode in a fiery expulsion. As this takes place, the powerful jingle that Terry Crews belts out radiates throughout the commercial leaving the audience with a memorable tune to hum.

Baby Commercial

In this commercial Terry Crews appears in a bed room decorated with a color palette that accents both Terry Crews and his product the shaving gel.  The commercial starts off with him standing in the bedroom shirtless and continuing to boast about the shaving gel.  As he proceeds to share the new product with the audience, humorous activity takes place.  Terry Crews makes references to the product being "newer than the new pair of socks you just bought!" which in turn brings forth a brand new pair of socks who talk.  The talking socks continue this chain of events which lead the audience through a brand new waffle iron talking about being new, solar panels, and in the end a brand new baby.  Terry Crews picks up the child and yells, " I HAVE A SON!".  This concludes the commercial and the audience is left with the signature old spice song belted out by the actor Terry Crews. 

Bewildered Patient Commercial

The camera outlines a hospital room full of dull colors with a man laying in a hospital bed.  The man is in a baby blue gown and has a beard that resembles that of a survivors beard after being lost for a year at sea.  The man wakes up coughing and ask, "Where am I?".  From the mans beard a miniature Terry Crews shaves through screaming while holding a razor. "Say goodbye to this nasty beard!" exclaims Terry Crews while the patient ask in wonder, "What happened to me?".  In a slight moment of humor and comedic relief Terry Crews responds with, "I dont know! Im not a doctor!".  At this point in the commercial Terry Crews yells the name of the product, "OLD SPICE SHAVING GELLLLLL!".  Upon the name of the product that man lifts up from the neck as if gasping for air and a bottle of Old Spice Shaving Gel stems up from inside his mouth. From the gel, two little black arms and legs kick their way out of the bottle and explode around the room. The background to the commercial is covered in shaving gel and the male patient appears wearing sunglasses and no longer has a beard.  At this point he pulls down the sunglasses and proceeds to say, "New old spice shaving gel, Its cool.".  After leaving the audience with this phrase a razor slides down his silhouette leaving the image of the shaving gel behind him.  At the end of the commercial the Old Spice whistle rings to remind the audience of the product.  The use of this whistle allows manufacturers away ruminate in the minds of audience when the consumers may be shopping and seem to remember the catchy jingle.  Upon remembering the jingle, the consumers may be reminded their need for hygiene products and therefore purchase from Old Spice.

Conclusion

Old Spice being one of the major companies in the world has found numerous ways to appeal to all audiences.  In some of the most famous commercials they find ways to employ humor, celebrities, and subliminal messaging.   Through simple use of colors of the background items, to the intriguing jingle the company plays at the end of every commercial, it is clear the company has top notch minds behind these commercials.

Work Cited

"Procter & Gamble." History of Old Spice. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

"Old Spice | Wieden+Kennedy." Old Spice | Wieden+Kennedy. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.

All commercials are owned and copyright of Old Spice Industries.  I do not own the rights to these commercials or the products they endorse. The platformer for which these commercials are demonstrated through is YouTube.