Old Spice

Old Spice Guy Is Back

Yes, the Old Spice Guy is back in all his buff, towel covered glory for a series of quick video clips in a similar fashion to last year. Only this time, he’s taking on Fabio in a “Mano A Mano in El Bano” steel cage video match to the death (or, until one of them gets more votes online).

A handful of the Fabio videos are kinda funny. But more striking to me is the clear awkwardness of Fabio while recording these videos. I don’t know if that is part of the act or not, but looking at the Fabio videos head to head against the Old Spice Guy (Isaiah Mustafa) makes you really appreciate the Old Spice Guy’s skill and talent.

I’m Writing A Post

The Old Spice Man videos that are taking the internet by storm are a result of a marathon 3 day production from the brand’s agency and the actor Isiah Mustafa

A team of creatives, tech geeks, marketers and writers gathered in an undisclosed location in Portland, Oregon yesterday and produced 87 short comedic YouTube videos about Old Spice. In real time. They leveraged Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and blogs. They dared to touch the wild beasts of 4chan and they lived to tell the tale. Even 4chan loved it. Everybody loved it; those videos and 74 more made so far today have now been viewed more than 4 million times and counting. The team worked for 11 hours yesterday to make 87 short videos, that’s just over 7 minutes per video, not accounting for any breaks taken.

Marshall Kirkpatrick over at RWW has a nice write up on the shoot, and calls out what I think is the most important element of this campaign: that the brand team at Old Spice had the courage to trust the Wieden + Kennedy team and give them the freedom they needed to crush it.