The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

January 7, 2016 | 2 min read

Old Spice has bid farewell to its two outlandish spokesmen, Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa, and introduced the new face of its future ad campaigns in the form of a character laden with the same absurd bravado that has come to define the brand.

The new campaign created by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore has launched with two ads featuring a fresh face at the helm of the self-deprecating take macho idiocy known as Legendary Man.

Using the hashtag #smellegendary, the ad’s new star has something resembling a Scandinavian accent and promotes Old Spice’s latest line called ‘Hardest Working Collection’.

In one of the ads Legendary Man stands atop a whale hitting tennis balls as its travels through the ocean and philosophically asks himself: “is there a limit to how much living I can live with my life?”

Wieden + Kennedy have pushed the boundaries of absurdity in the new campaign. Clicking on the whale at a specific moment in the ad opens up a new webpage for ‘Legendary Whale Tours’- a spoof whale tour webpage where the absurdity of the ads approach continues. In it reviews say things like “I didn't see a whale...because I was on one!" and "So far my tour has lasted two years and six months. Great value!"

The second ad sees Legendary Man continue in the same epic style quest in testing his mental and physical boundaries when he builds and tests a rocket car despite having no knowledge of engineering.

The approach continues the longstanding approach which Old Spice has used in its advertising and goes some way to matching the performances which Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa have become renowned for.

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