Old Spice Guy Returns to Solve a High-Class Problem for P&G

Procter & Gamble (PG) has brought back Old Spice Guy — towel, shower stall and all — in a move that has the ad business debating whether the campaign is jumping the shark. Madison Avenue is obsessed with Old Spice Guy because the campaign blew the doors off most of the rest of the work ad agencies churn out. Ad agency Wieden + Kennedy took a legacy product in an uninspiring category, added women as a target market for men’s products (they’re the ones who actually do the shopping), and used TV and the internet in seemingly perfect harmony. The new campaign will be “educational,” Old Spice Guy promises, and have:

… an entertainment value that is second to none. I know because I’ve seen them and have a strong memory of them in my brain.

The pressure on Wieden and P&G now must be incredible. Having made one of the funniest, most-loved campaigns of 2010 they now have to deliver something even better. That will be tough. After Old Spice Guy drew the shower curtain on his antics last year he was replaced by Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. Those ads were darkly surreal and slightly disturbing. In one, he pulled his own heart out of his chest (it’s an Old Spice deodorant); in another he rode a giant blackbird into space to blow up Saturn.
During that period, other advertisers responded the only way they know how, by plagiarizing the idea:

• The Sun newspaper swapped out the Guy for a Page 3 girl and kept pretty much everything else the same.
• Sesame Street did a wonderful skit with Grover – “sadly, you are not a monster!” — to advertise itself on PBS.
• StayFree stole the “perfect shirtless man” device for its pads.
• And Brut, another hoary old cologne brand, produced an online game in which users could slap a “man in a towel.” (Interestingly, the character has since disappeared from Brut’s web site, which makes me suspect they received a cease-and-desist order from P&G’s attorneys.)

In a poll on Adfreak, a blog read widely in the ad biz, readers are split 50-50 over whether Old Spice Guy has jumped the shark. The naysayers should check out Twitter and YouTube, however. Old Spice Guy’s “I’m back” video has received 271,000 views since it appeared Jan. 20; and Twitter is a virtual river of “Old Spice Guy is back” retweets.
So half the ad business is wrong on this issue: The people have spoken and they’re happy to have Old Spice Guy back again. Being forced to return an ad icon because its popularity eclipses your other work is a only a “problem” for P&G in the sense that it’s the type of high-class problem most brands dream of having.