Old Old Spice vs. New Old Spice: The
Shifting Seas of Manliness and Semiotics in Advertisements
As the tide of time pushes forth
ceaselessly, so too do the needs and desires of customers. Companies must never
remain idle; in order to adapt to their customers’ fluid whims, they must alter
both their products’ performance and presentation. Companies that do not adapt
to the evolutions of their buyers are thrown by the wayside. However, those
companies which figure out the impulsive psychology and flippant trends of
their consumer base stay relevant and are rewarded. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Ford,
Exxon Mobil, Wells Fargo, and The New York Times are just a few of the many
companies that have survived and navigated the mercurial market for more than
100 years (“Public Companies”). Established in 1937, Old Spice, the men’s
deodorant company, has not existed for quite so long. However, it is no
exception to the swelling wave of adaptable and persevering companies.
Old Spice has undergone a sea change
in advertising strategy. It went from a more serious, sailing-oriented theme
pre-1980s to a more overtly sensual, but still mostly conventional advertising
company in the 80s and 90s. Since the mid-2000s, the Old Spice ads have become
zany, much faster-paced, and on occasion, entirely unpredictable. The likely
culprit for the change is Old Spice’s aging consumer base: pre-2000s, it was
mostly older men who were loyal to the brand. Old Spice therefore needed a new
loyal customer base for its products. The truth behind this shift in audience
is represented by a recent ad quip used to sell Old Spice Class Scent shower
gel: “The original. If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t exist”
(Elliot). For this paper, I will analyze two ads—one from 1957 and the other from
2012—and take an analytical scalpel to the reasons for their differences. In
particular, I will be looking at how the concept of manliness has changed over
time, and what Old Spice has done to accommodate that cultural shift. I will
also explain what that cultural and customer shift means for the nautical roots
of the Old Spice brand. In essence, my point is that because of cultural and
semiotic shifts, the ideas of manliness and the ethos surrounding nauticality
no longer represent the now-antiquated sentiments of fatherly care and
adventurous, mystical seamanship. Instead, the New Old Spice marks its products
and commercials with a frenetic and boundless sense of powerful manliness, as
well as a dissipation of the mystical, and classically mythical, cultural
ripples conjured by ocean- and sailor-themed marketing.
In order to elucidate my points
about how the Old Spice brand was able to stay afloat and acclimatize itself to
the culture, to the meanings of manhood, and to the shift in the mysticism
surrounding nautical themes, I employ the works of several author-philosophers:
Walter Benjamin, a philosopher and cultural critic, whose essay, “The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” played a pivotal role in 20th
century aesthetic theory; Roland Barthes, a renowned linguist, semiotician, and
philosopher of the 20th century; Pierre Bourdieu, another modern
philosopher and anthropologist interested in societal power; and Daniel
Chandler, a modern semiotician and professor at Aberystwyth University in the
UK. In addition, I cite several other, more contemporary sources that explain
the cultural weight that is borne down upon these ads. First, the ads:
The older, 1957 Old Spice commercial
remains true to the authentic, sailor-feel for which the brand was originally
known. It is a black and white commercial, which begins by showing a picture of
the iconic ship, “Old Spice” in cursive logo above it, and some moving,
rippling waves coming from the bottom of the ship and extending out toward the
viewer. It then quickly shows a scene of three dancing cartoon sailors, one of
which is the captain; a jingle plays: “‘Old Spice means quality,’ said the
captain to the Boatswain. So ask for the package with the ship that sails the
ocean!” The commercial then moves to a regular man in front of his mirror,
trying on some Old Spice aftershave, and grinning widely. Finally, it closes to
a shoreline, the noise of the surf washing up on the beach, and a picture of
the Old Spice After Shave Lotion front and center. The narrator explains to us
why we should buy the product and how we will like the “tangy Old Spice scent.
Bright and bracing as an ocean breeze.” At several points, we see the interior
of the Old Spice bottle turn into ocean waves, harking back to that original, nautical
element its first customers appreciated.
The newer Old Spice ad, made in
2012, stars the actor, comedian, football player, family man, and eternal
optimist Terry Crews. He plays a high-energy, shirtless, highly muscular zealot
of the featured product: Old Spice Body Spray. There are a series of these ads
in which he plays this violent version of an Old Spice coach. In one particular
ad, a “regular guy” is just starting to put his stuff away in the locker room
when Crews magically flies in from the top of the screen, holding an Old Spice
Body Spray canister in his hand and roars, “Old Spice Body Spray can change a
regular-smellin’ man into a man who smells like powerrr!” If the next part
sounds strange on paper, it is: Crews blows away all of the regular guy’s
clothes with his “power breath,” leaving the regular guy standing there in
boxers, holding only a hockey stick. The guy begins to complain, “Now how is
this. . . . ” Crews cuts him off mid-question by blowing more super-powered
breath on the guy, enrobing him in Ancient Egyptian-style dress, and turning
his hockey stick into a Pharaoh's scepter. The guy says, “Wow, you know what. I
actually do feel more powerful.” Immediately, Crews yells out “Potato
Chiiiips!” making the regular guy explode; in his place stands a vending
machine full of the summoned snack. Crews then punches through the vending
machine’s glass, retrieves a bag, and calmly eats a chip while shrugging
humbly. The commercial cuts to a still of four canisters of differently scented
Old Spice Body Spray, while Crews is singing “P-P-Pah-Pah-Power!” to the
original Old Spice jingle. He then pops his head out of a canister and says,
“It’s me!” with an explosion in the background. Commercial fin.
The
two commercials are as different as a calm ocean and a merciless hurricane:
while both are powerful, the 1957 Old Spice ad garners most of its influence
from strong, peaceful, and consistent undertows of cultural inferences, while
the 2012 ad has much more violent and obvious means of persuasion. To explain
the visual and rhetorical shift in these ads, it is helpful to turn to theorist
Bourdieu, who writes about social consequences surrounding photography and
visual rhetoric in his book Photography:
A Middle-brow Art. One of his points about poses in photography can be
expanded to film, and more specifically, to the modern Old Spice commercial.
Bourdieu suggests that in photography “to strike a pose is to offer oneself to
be captured in a posture which is not and which does not seek to be ‘natural’.
. . . Striking a pose means respecting
oneself and demanding respect” (77).
Applied to the Old Spice ad, one can argue that throughout the ad Crews
stands straight and tall, broad-chested and muscular, with his hands on his
hips. He is taller than the regular guy, and so looks down upon him; he is
clearly imposing and in charge. The first ad does not present a picture of
manliness in the same light: its image is humble and wholesome, with the man in
the commercial thoroughly enjoying his aftershave. The voice goes along with
the cheery picture and dancing cartoon figures. The whole ad is upbeat and
hopeful, not domineering and dictatorial, like Crews’ character is meant to be.
The
modern ad taps into a cultural sense of militaristic or sports-centered manhood.
It may seem strange that an ad from 2012, in an age of rapidly loosening gender
roles and freedom, would opt to promote a more overtly strong form of
manliness, while a 1957 ad would appeal to wholesome fatherhood. Is there a
historical reason for this? Perhaps. On the website “Artofmanliness.com,”
author and blogger Brett claims that manliness is dictated, at least partially,
by economics: “When resources are easier and less dangerous to obtain, and
aren’t at risk of being raided by others, an emphasis on the code of manhood
weakens . . . . Here in the West we live in the most resource-rich period in
all human history. . . There is very
little danger; a man can go his entire life without ever getting into a fistfight.” Brett’s explanation, then, gives us an
opportunity for further analysis of the 2012 ad.
The “regular guy,” hockey-playing
teenager is a synecdoche; he is meant to stand in as a part of a larger system
of weak men. Daniel Chandler is a semiotician who on his website thoroughly
explains the fundamentals of semiotics. Referring to the work of linguists
Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle, Chandler suggests that “In photographic and
filmic media a close-up is a simple synecdoche—a part representing the whole.” Chandler continues,
Indeed,
the formal frame of any visual image (painting, drawing, photograph, film or
television frame [or commercial]) functions as a synecdoche in that it suggest
that what is being offered is a ‘slice-of-life’, and that the world outside the
frame is carrying on in the same manner as the world depicted within it.
The teenager in the commercial is
the every-man (or every-adolescent) of the 21st century: effete,
slouched, and slow to act. He complains negatively or comments positively, yet
ineffectually, about Crews’ actions (blowing off his clothes and garbing him in
Pharaoh-outfit, respectively). He is not loud or confident. In that case, using
the analysis of Brett’s scarcity-of-resources concept mentioned above, the
commercial offers two things: 1) an acknowledgement of the current, enfeebled
men who have no capacity to fight for their own survival, and 2) a rejection of
and enjoinder to that weak every-man: Change
yourself now! Old Spice will help you! Crews, then, acts as the herald of
this prophetic coaching. He is also a symbol within the context of this
rhetorically adroit reproach.
Crews stands in for a concept larger
than himself (though not much larger, since he is such a massive guy). His
small red shorts, when contrasted with the blue shorts, gray shirt, and
plastic, childish yellow helmet of the “regular guy,” should be taken as a
clear sign of command. Robin Williams, an expert visual designer, notes in her
book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book,
that “Red, yellow, and blue is an extremely popular combination for children’s
products” (95). Although red is often used for children’s toys, in Western
culture it is also undeniably viewed as an aggressive and occasionally sexual
color, two themes with which Old Spice hopes to be associated. Indeed, Crews is
acting as synecdoche or metonymy for the concept “power”—this is obvious
enough, since he shouts the term itself in a non-sequitur fashion throughout
the course of the commercial. But he is not just “power;” Crews is a manly
power that much of our culture has lost, according to the commercial. He
sincerely wants the pathetic wimp in front of him to have that power, so he
gives him Pharaoh clothing. The clothing acts as a metonym for a cultural idea
we have of Ancient pharaohs: they were deemed demi-gods, able to wield almost
infinite power. In his work on visual semiotics in the essay “Rhetoric of the
Image,” Barthes states, “Here text (most often a snatch of dialogue) and image
stand in a complementary relationship; the words, in the same way as the
images, are fragments of a more general syntagm and the unity of the message is
realized at a higher level, that of the story, the anecdote, the diegesis . . .”
(41). In the short diegesis of the commercial, then, the “regular guy” is
imbued with power from a higher source, in the same way a Pharaoh came to
power—through a religious ceremony. If seen in this context, Crews may even be
a godlike—or at least a demigod-like—figure.
The 2012 commercial is anything but
humble: it stands as a warrior call, a call to seize power through the use of
the mightiest canister of Old Spice Body Spray. It is even brazen and vaguely
blasphemous from a culturally religious context. The 1957 ad is markedly absent
of any of the abovementioned components. Starting with the light-hearted cartoon,
moving to the smiling man and cheery tune, and ending with the bright ocean and
Old Spice bottle, there is almost no antagonistic tension in the commercial.
The man presented in this ad is clean in more ways than one: he is clean-shaven
and is applying the after-shave onto his face while the narrator says, “[the
After Shave] makes your face wake up, tingles
into a clean, fresh feeling.” His
hair is also cropped quite low, and parted properly with a comb. He is the
quintessential man of the 50s: the family man; there is nothing threatening
about this guy. In fact, he is so confident, clean, and humble that he does not
even speak for himself: he smiles while the narrator explains his story—they
are cooperators in a fight against unkempt dirtiness. The man stands by and
seems to be waiting for cues from the narrator to act. They are a tag-team duo
against not just physical dirtiness, but moral uncleanliness as well.
Besides the aura of manliness that
has no doubt brought appeal to men in both the 1950s and 2000s, there is
another aura that bookends the ad. Oceanicity, or a nautical theme, is a very
prominent part of the commercial. The audience, who is probably not familiar
with actual sailing and nautical practices, is interpellated into that world
(or a cheery, sugar-coated imitation of it). Scott McCloud, who, in his book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, wrote
about cartoons and the human dynamics surrounding them, claiming “the universality of cartoon imagery” (202;
emphasis in original). McCloud continues, “The more cartoony a face is, for
instance, the more people it could be said to describe. . . . The cartoon
is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled. . . .” (202, 207;
emphasis in original). In terms of the commercial, then, the smiling, dancing
cartoon sailors help the audience become sailors
themselves, at least for the duration of the ad. Toward the end, the bottle and
ocean are shown, further associating the calm and liberating virtues of the sea
with the Old Spice brand.
Benjamin, who wrote one of the 20th
century’s most formative essays, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction,” frames the cultural shifts and social values ascribed to art,
and how the democratization, mechanization, and general mass dissemination of
art have corroded the cultural values, mythos, and ultimately importance of all
art. When Old Spice first premiered its products in 1937, sailing—and its
attendant undertones of adventurousness and freedom—were quite novel, manly,
and popular ideas among Americans. This is no longer the case. I believe that
Benjamin would have noted the erosion of the Old Spice ship icon and
nauticality as a consequence of the abandonment of traditional aesthetic
values. The old ad included a certain magic brought on by the image of the sea.
As Benjamin argues, “Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects
destined to serve in a cult. . . . The
elk portrayed by the man of the Stone Age on the walls of his cave was an
instrument of magic. . . . Today the
cult value would seem to demand that the work of art remain hidden” (21). In
other words, the cult value of the ocean theme in the Old Spice ads and on its
products has faded in the modern era.
The ship and sailor theme did stay
strong for a while: through the years after its nascence, Old Spice included
different ships on their product bottles: According to the website
Oldspicecollectibles.com, Old Spice originally used the ships Grand Turk and the Friendship. Later, Old Spice used the following ships: John Wesley, Salem, Birmingham, Maria
Teresa, Propontis, Recovery, Sooloo, Star of the West, Constitution, Java,
United States, and Hamilton. In
recent years, the marketers for Old Spice, Wieden & Kennedy, have navigated
the Old Spice brand away from the use of ships and predominantly nautical
appeal. One reason is clear: modern men and youth do not have the same yearning
for sailing and high-seas freedom; the ethos of the sailor and mythos of the
ocean have been lost on the techno-inspired generations of today. Thus, the
modern Old Spice ads show a conspicuous lack of that early oceanicity, a
cornerstone of the brand’s initial identity.
In sum, Old Spice, the sailor-inspired
hygiene company, has kept armpits fresher, faces cleaner, and smiles wider for
generations. As we have seen, the shift in consumer base has meant a necessary
shift in advertising strategy. The earlier Old Spice ads undoubtedly appealed
to those men who sought for a sailor-like freedom, freshness, and sense of
adventure. The ships placed on the products and in the ads served to reinforce
that nautical magic. The manliness of this era, in addition to being
sailor-oriented, brought in themes of cleanliness, cheerfulness, and
wholesomeness. Although children are not seen or mentioned in the 1957 ad, it
would not be difficult to extrapolate from the man’s appearance and attitude
that he is a father figure. We are invited into his world through the use of light-hearted
cartoons, and then given a happy snapshot of what we stand to gain from using
Old Spice. However, a few generations have passed since the era of the cheery
family-man was pedestaled in the public’s eye. Now, the extolled form of
manliness is a more brutally powerful, modern and muscular version of the
ideal. He stands for the power that can be yours if you purchase and use Old
Spice products. In a world of prosperity, where fighting for survival is simply
unnecessary, Crews says in the commercial “Buck up, kid!” to a generation who,
if not actually emasculated, may feel relatively powerless. Several visual
symbols move the ads along: the ocean waves for freshness and calm, the
over-powering Crews for godlike power, and the uses of color and posture.
Benjamin, Barthes, Bourdieu, and Chandler argue, through their work on
semiotics and visual theory, that cultural shifts in abstract concepts such as
oceanicity and manliness can be tracked down, isolated, and explained in a
rational manner. The cultural shifts manifested by the ads add up to show that
the Old Old Spice has been discarded; the New Old Spice is in “Powerrr!”
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