I will rarely Reblog or link directly to someone else’s post without adding some thoughts of my own, but this post at Velociriot was too good not to share.
Apparently Old Spice has a new ad out, one that borrows a touch too heavily from Oedipus Rex. It also puts into questionable song an uncomfortably casual disrespect for mothers, girlfriends and women in general, as well as the young men that they love. But don’t take my word for it – head over there and take a look at the original post. It’s a good read and the analysis is sound. Nicely done to folks at Velociriot! (But not you, Old Spice. You dropped the ball on this one).
Madeleine Mitchell 
Oh damn! Thats.. just… Wrong!!! Granted, it explains the weird display I saw at the store… Old Spice is really angling for the “new” generation. Sigh…
No kidding. Something tells me that they’re misreading their target audience. I hope….
Really!
Wow.. I respectfully could not possibly disagree more with Velociriot’s take on this article.. I wanted to grab the person who wrote that and check them thoroughly for a sense of humor.. These Old Spice commercials are satire/parody/mockery of the various cliches used in marketing. There are a couple dozen of them now and they are clearly meant to be absurd; They are nailing their target audience: people who find their commercials funny and don’t give a rat’s ass about a deodorant beyond it smelling good (vs Speed Stick and the like who market it like it is the choice of rich Olympians).
if people believe they are actually trying to make some statement on men, women, motherhood, etc (and that it matters at all even if they are) then.. well frankly I would suggest that we start talking about the 99% of commercials whose mantra appears to be “Women smart. Men dumb. Moms superhuman. Dads incompetent oafs”.
My favorite Old Spice commercial may be the one with the football player who takes a long shower at halftime b/c he loves Old Spice so much and promptly misses the second half of the game. 🙂
Lighten up people! 🙂
Chris, this is great – you’re coming at this from a really different perspective than I am, so I really appreciate your comment. Generally speaking, I agree with you about Old Spice’s marketing campaign. It’s got some genuinely funny stuff and I think it’s greatest strength is its irreverence. The reason I reposted Velociriot’s take on this ad in particular is because this commercial so stood out for me as a botched attempt at humor. It slid straight through uncomfortable-funny to unpleasant (I think it was the combo of the creepy song lyrics and the visuals of the horror movie moms). I can definitely see what you’re saying, and I can even see that that’s exactly what they were aiming for, but in this case, for me, it was a miss. I’ll definitely concede that I might have taken it more seriously than Old Spice intended, and that some of Velociriot’s analysis failed to keep the ad’s context and primary intent in mind, but it did put into words what made me so oddly uncomfortable while I watched it. And the fact that it made me uncomfortable surprised me b/c I love biting humor and I love satire. This just felt like a misfire… 🙂
Fair enough but unlike you, Velociriot seems to be ascribing to Old Spice some over-arching intent to make bold cultural statements rather than it simply being a fail. Truth be told, I didn’t like this commercial either; I thought it was dumb. I have a feeling that I know some Moms who would find this hysterical though.
I want a donut.
Yeah – I can definitely agree on the over-arching intent. It’s better taken in the context of the single ad itself.
Plus, donuts sound good.