Many brands promise to make literally anyone more attractive to the opposite sex, but Old Spice takes this promise to the extreme with its new ads starring a hapless, barely functional android.

In a pair of spots from Wieden + Kennedy, a robot with the head of male human consistently wins with the ladies because he smells nice, all despite his best efforts to ruin his chances.

By positioning its products as deus-ex-machina sex potions that women simply can't resist, Old Spice comes off smelling quite a bit like competitor Axe, which has actually been moving away from these kinds of tropes in favor of more cinematic fare.

But the spots manage to keep Old Spice somewhat distinct with the sort of over-the-top humor that has defined the brand since Isaiah Mustafa first transformed a pair of theater tickets into a fistful of diamonds. And the commercials—TV ad "Soccer" and Web spot "Nightclub"—definitely have their bizarre moments.

Plus, Old Spice has already made the case, powerfully if insanely, that its products could turn men's hair into impossibly talented gophers, and mother-smothered boys into men. So it was really only a matter of time before it told us it could seal the deal for cyborgs. 

As Old Spice and agency Wieden + Kennedy continue to roll out ads featuring their chronically malfunctioning spokes-bot, it's hard to decide if they're succumbing to one of the most tired cliches in advertising or if they're skewering it. 

The gag, which competitor Axe spent years building its marketing around, is that using the brand's grooming products will make any man irresistible to women. Old Spice took the trope to its logical extreme, creating a mandroid who can score a hot date even when his face is falling off or he's crushing a woman's ribs with the weight of his industrial endoskeleton.

In the campaign's newest spot, the robot has made the mechanically unwise decision to lounge in a hot tub, surrounded by women so enraptured by his scent that they seem to have lost the common sense to leave a body of water that contains a sparking, error-spouting electrical device.

The campaign's ads definitely are good for a few laughs, but their portrayal of vapid women is also a departure for the brand.

A major factor in the success of Old Spice's already legendary "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign was that it spoke directly to women ("Hello, ladies.") and recognized that they played a big role in household purchases like body wash and soap.

Later campaigns switched back to focusing on men, but they did so through oddly charming non sequiturs like a screaming Terry Crews or a watermelon shower basketball. 

But now, as it strives for a bigger slice of the lucrative male grooming category, Old Spice has dropped to the lowest common denominator: Use this product, and nothing else will matter. Women will hump you.

Turning women into mindless nymphomaniacs is the epitome of sexist advertising, but with one of the world's top agencies behind the campaign, one has to wonder if the whole thing is just a meta parody of how dumb most male-oriented advertising is. 

We asked Wieden + Kennedy whether it views the campaign as satire, though the shop deferred to the client:

"Much like all of our TV commercials, the new spots with the Old Spice robot illustrate the transformational powers of our products in the most ridiculous, over-the-top fashion," says Kate DiCarlo, Procter & Gamble's communications manager for Old Spice. "In this case, we were looking to bring to life the concept that when you use the combination of Old Spice body wash, deodorant and shampoo, the result is a manly, irresistible freshness from head to toes—regardless of your biological composition." 

In the end, it's hard to get upset about an ad campaign that's this knowingly, gloriously dumb. The gags are so well delivered and head-shakingly odd, they make other "this will make you hot" ads seem flacid by comparison.

And if that's not a definition for satirical advertising, what is? 

If watching Drew Brees talk to a hyper-awkward robot for six minutes is your kind of thing, then Old Spice has an ad for you.

The New Orleans Saints quarterback keeps his cool during "4th and Touchdown," a fictional sports news show hosted by Old Spice's new mascot, who in the recent past has been doing well with human women, despite his total lack of social skills.

Absent that context, the moral now seems to be that viewers should act like Drew Brees, not like a hyper-awkward robot, which is pretty sound advice regardless. Even if the robot claims to have great hair thanks to Old Spice, he's not the most reliable narrator.



The pair's antics range from fairly grating to pretty amusing, with some sharp writing and a lot of waiting between the high points (see: roughly 4:15, Brees pretending to be a brass instrument). In a way, the finale rewards your patience, though may not be quite enough to compensate (perhaps a shorter edit would be in order?).

Anyway, the whole thing deserves credit for trying to send up the tradition of senseless televised sports coverage, even if the pass doesn't quite connect. That robot does a solid impression of a smug anchor.

And if you do like it, stay tuned for more. The brand is promising appearances from Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green and Seattle Seahawks defensive back Earl Thomas.

Distraught mothers became psychotic stalkers in Old Spice's epic "Momsong" musical, following their sons around and weeping about how they've grown into men too soon, thanks to the brand's female-luring body sprays.

Now, it's time for fathers to weigh in. And naturally, they couldn't be happier that their boys are turning into men.

The 60-second sequel, "Dadsong," from Wieden + Kennedy, tries to pack in a lot more than the original, which won a slew of awards, including gold at the Clios and in Cannes. It opens with one of the moms from the first spot, still bereaved as she watches her son slow-dance with a girl at a high school dance.



"Where's my little boy, I miss him so/Who's this man living in our home?/My special guy has turned into a man," she sings. Then, back at home, Dad comes roaring in on a sit-down lawnmower, and sings: "At least he won't be living in a driveway in a van!"

The rest of the spot is a showdown between mothers and fathers, with amusing lyrics—music company Walker worked on the spot, with music and words by Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords—and increasingly outlandish visuals, echoing the first ad. (The mom under the ice is the best bit here.)

Of course, the moms and dads are actually both right. As the lyrics cleverly hint at, about halfway through, he's not a man or a child—he's a manchild. And he'll certainly get a kick out of the commercial.

CREDITS
Client: OId Spice
Spot: "Dadsong"

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley | Craig Allen
Copywriters: Jason Kreher | Nathaniel Lawlor
Art Directors: Matt Sorrell | Ruth Bellotti
Senior Producer: Lindsay Reed
Account Team: Georgina Gooley | Nick Pirtle | Michael Dalton | Jessica Monsey
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman | Joe Staples
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Colleen O’Donnell
Line Producer: Jay Veal
Director of Photography: Fredrik Backar

Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Assistant Editor: Pamela Petruski
Post Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld

Visual Effects Company: The Mill
Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Producer: Adam Reeb
Coordinator: Kris Drenzek
Creative Director: Tim Davies
Senior Visual Effects Artist: Becky Porter
Visual Effects Artists: Alex Candlish | Patrick Munoz | John Price | Timothy Crabtree | Adam Lambert | Anthony Petitti | Yukiko Ishiwata | Phil Mayer
Computer Graphics Visual Effects Artist: Jason Jansky

Music Company: Walker
Producer: Sara Matarazzo
Assistant Producer: Abbey Hickman

Composer: Bret McKenzie
Arranger: Mickey Petralia

Music Record and Final Mix
Studio: HEARby
Engineer: John Buroker
Executive Producer: Nannette Buroker

Color Transfer Company: The Mill
Artist: Adam Scott
Executive Producer: Thatcher Peterson
Producer: Natalie Westerfield

Old Spice this week unveiled "Dadsong," its second lunatic 60-second musical via Wieden + Kennedy—the sequel to the award-winning "Momsong" from a year ago. Clearly, the music on a commercial like this isn't just an important component—it's the main component, around which everything revolves.

AdFreak caught up with Sara Matarazzo, owner of music company Walker, which coordinated the scoring and recording of the music, to ask how it all came together.

AdFreak: What was the brief for "Dadsong"?
Sara Matarazzo: We worked on the "Momsong" campaign, so the idea for this one was to create the second single off the "album." The challenge was to create a track as good as the first while keeping the campaign consistent and cohesive.

Sara Matarazzo

How is "Dadsong" different from "Momsong," creatively?
The key difference with "Dadsong" is that we introduced a new perspective to the story. We needed to juxtapose the moms' feelings with the dads' through the music. The main melody of "Momsong" was written in an unusually low female vocal range, which contributed to our purposefully homely performances. However, "Dadsong" utilizes a more traditional female range in order to allow the full male register to shine through. The new arrangement of voices helped accentuate that back and forth and allowed us to build the song up to a bigger climactic moment with voices hitting notes all over the pitch spectrum.

Walk us through the creative process.
We worked with Bret McKenzie and Mickey Petralia from Flight of the Conchords on board to compose the music. We have worked with Bret and Mickey on several ads over the years, so this was a nice reunion. We actually wanted to work with him on the first Old Spice spot but he was busy writing music for Muppets Most Wanted [following his Oscar-winning work on 2011's The Muppets]. I told him, "We have the perfect campaign for you," and he was available. Of course, he nailed it.

The process started with Bret and I going back and forth with the creatives at the agency to refine the music, melody, chords and arc. When we got to a place where the team was happy, Old Spice gave us the green light and production on the spot began in Prague with director Andreas Nilsson. Once we had rough picture, our music producer Abbey Hickman worked on [voice] casting with the agency to match our actors. Walker engineer Graeme Gibson oversaw working with our casting and creating demos to show all the possibilities and different directions our vocals could be, which helped to choose our favorite takes and piece together the elements. After the singers and musicians were selected, we went to Vancouver to direct and final record with them.



Musically, the spot feels a bit like the end of a big musical, when the entire cast does the last song. Is that something that was mentioned?
Yes, that was a reference. Mainstream musical theater nowadays is largely based off the past century of popular music (except for Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown musicals). Take Spring Awakening or Mama Mia, for instance. Both infuse contemporary rock and pop styles with dramatic content to be more relevant to the modern musical watcher … and sell more tickets. Furthermore, the most passionate songs in a musical are the numbers that bookend the acts and those songs usually utilize the entire cast. "Dadsong" is like the end of one of these musical numbers because it's passionate, dramatic, musically modern and features a large ensemble.

Which particular musical styles or genres is the spot based on?
Classic rock ballads and operatic recitative.

How is working on a project like this different from other ads you do?
These spots are special because we are involved not just in post but from the beginning of the job and throughout the process. You collaborate on ideas that end up in the campaign. Music can be subjective and go through many mutations, but with this campaign, the song and the spot are one and the same.

Ready for more screaming, twitchy muscles, explosions and horrifying hallucinations? Good, because Terry Crews just made another Old Spice commercial.

The ad, by Wieden + Kennedy and directors Fatal Farm, continues the brand's "Get Shaved in the Face" campaign for its electric shavers, which Crews helped to introduce early last year in a murderous spot with Little Terry Crews. This time around, we catch Terry right in the middle of a nightmare—and when he wakes up, it only gets worse.

We caught up with Kate DiCarlo, Procter & Gamble's communications manager for beauty care, and Jason Bagley, creative director at Wieden + Kennedy, to chat about the spot and Terry's popularity as an Old Spice spokesman. Check out that Q&A below.



AdFreak: How does this spot evolve last year's "Get Shaved in the Face" campaign?
Kate DiCarlo: "Nightmare Face" brings back Terry Crews to continue the "Get Shaved in the Face" story. This time around, we wake up in Terry's nightmare, which revolves around unruly face hair and a familiar face as his wife. Even if it takes a lot of yelling, we're here to remind guys about the importance of keeping their scraggly hairs in check by using Old Spice Electric Shavers. We want them to know that we have a variety of options that they can choose from, depending on their shaving needs.

Why do you think Terry has such longevity as an Old Spice spokesman?
DiCarlo: Terry is a long-time fan favorite, and we're always thrilled when we find another opportunity to work together. There's no one else out there like him—with that explosive personality, impressive yelling power and manly chest muscles. Our fans are always asking what's next for Terry and Old Spice, and so we're excited to give them more of what they're wanting, while also helping them shaverize their beards, which results in more handsome face parts.

Fatal Farm handled the direction, editing and visual effects. What do they bring to the table?
Jason Bagley: We love Fatal Farm and have worked with them in the past on various projects. We love them because they take absurdly ridiculous and ultimately profoundly stupid humor as seriously as we do. Stupid humor is serious business, and they are seriously smart about stupid things.

Anything can happen when you're out and about in the wilderness. And these new Old Spice ads prove it. 

The latest kooky campaign from Old Spice, courtesy of Wieden + Kennedy, has everything you never could have imagined. It's got an angry bear with an extraordinarily long tongue, a big bird regurgitating strange food indeed for its young ones, and your typical woman clad in a hot pink bikini in the middle of the forest.

Five 15-second spots debut online today and will air early next week on TV—two at a time in 30-second pods. The campaign launches three news scents for the brand's Fresher Collection—Timber, Amber and Citron—each designed with a specific male persona in mind, including lumberjacks, explorers and captains. Because what could be manlier than a man who smells like a lumberjack or some pinecones? Am I right, ladies?



Each spot concludes with the tagline "Smell as great as nature is," to drive home the idea that men want to smell as fresh as the great outdoors.

Old Spice even conducted a study to back up the campaign. The study found that nature scents have a calming effect on people, and wearing such earthy scents can make a man feel better than he would if he, say, actually took a jaunt outside and sniffed some trees.

The five spots are each as quirky as the next. They're also, however, what you've come to expect from the brand, which is no stranger to over-the-top spots—from screaming Terry Crews to the absurd Mandroid campaign. The challenge is to keep things fresh within the larger construct. And the brand clearly thinks it's still working.

Check out the rest of the spots below.

And here's a video that introduces the products and talks about the scent technology:

CREDITS
Client: Old Spice
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.

To promote a new collection of scents—Timber, Amber and Citron—Old Spice has placed a rather generous and oddly specific machine in Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall.

Nestled behind fake pine trees and prickly plastic grass, the giant vending machine lets passersby submit various items found in nature (snake skin, owl pellets, brain coral, etc.) and reap corresponding rewards. 

The brand's vending machine, which became open to the public today, will be in Grand Central until Saturday, Feb. 14. Submitting easy-to-find items like a leaf or a dozen acorns will score you low-rent prizes like a firm handshake and mashed potatoes with gravy, respectively.

Weirder items offer better payouts. An African horned melon will win you a pair of tickets for the NBA All-Star Game. Got a 6-inch bamboo stick? You've got yourself a $1,000 scholarship to wrestling school. Abalone shell? A fake Vince Lombardi trophy is yours.

You can find the full list below, but here's a video explaining the idea:

To drive off in the classic bright-red Lotus, you'll need to be lucky enough to find a seven-leaf clover.

On hand to introduce the new scent collection were brand spokesman Terry Crews and 2012 Miss Universe Olivia Culpo. A picnic date with Culpo was part of the vending machine's wares, but a young man decked out in a crisp red blazer submitted a camellia flower to the machine and won the prize. 

How does the machine work? How do you deposit four amoebas? How does it know the difference between a shark tooth and a shark tooth fossil? Most importantly, how many of each prize are up for grabs?

Old Spice representatives were vague about such details.

Of the machine and the brand's kooky advertising, Old Spice spokeswoman Kate DiCarlo did tell Adweek: "We pride ourselves on trying to entertain men while we build brand loyalty and that means trying new things. If it's been done before we're probably not going to do it, or if we've done it before, we're probably not going to do it again." 

Translation: this weekend's vending machine could be a one-time-only deal, so grab all the pinecones, sea grass and black sand that you can carry and try to win the Sega Genesis, Laserdisc player and 100-pound Olympic dumbell while they last. 

Here's the full list of what to bring and what it could win for you:

Trilobite fossil: Leather chair
Lichen: Snow skis
Shark tooth fossil: Karate lessons
Seven-leaf clover: Automobile
Six-inch Bamboo Stick: $1,000 scholarship to wrestling school
One leaf: A firm handshake
Brain coral: Bungee jump vacation
Owl pellet: Telescope
Prickly pear: Giant medieval tapestry
One camellia Flower: Picnic meal (with a supermodel)
A sprig of sea grass: Laserdisc player
A cup of black sand: 100-pound Olympic dumbbell
Five potatoes: Autographed baseballs
A very smooth river rock: Nautical sextant
One typha/cattail: Badger skull
Lava rock: Gold watches
An African horned melon: one pair NBA All-Star Game Tickets
Pyrite: Electric guitar
Ocean water: All the wadded up cash from a rich guy's pocket
Fist-sized rock: Hot dog
Thistles: 1980s-style Oakley Blades sunglasses
Pine needles: Root beer float
Abalone shell: Fake Vince Lombardi Trophy
Pinecone: Sega Genesis
Lily pad: Xbox One
A snake skin: Ninja outfit with fake throwing stars
Four amoeba: Darryl Strawberry rookie card
Leaves, Sticks, Twigs: Old Spice Fresher Collection products
Dozen acorns: Mashed potatoes and gravy
Shark tooth: Roller Blades 

Old Spice is tapping into the gamer community, which clearly overlaps with its own target, with an interesting campaign on Twitch—the live social video platform for gamers—in which viewers get to control a real human being dropping in a forest for three days.

Beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. PT, visitors to twitch.tv/oldspice will use the site's chat feature to send commands to the man to perform. Users will work together to unlock achievements or activities for Nature Man. ("Arm wrestle an obviously fake bear? Hear stories from a wise tree? Stumble across interesting and good smelling characters? The scenarios are endless—and completely up to the participating gamers," says Wieden + Kennedy, which built the experience.)

Beyond that, well, we'll just have to see how it unfolds.



"Old Spice is thrilled to bring an outdoor gaming experience like no other to our fans and the Twitch community," Kate DiCarlo, communications manager for P&G beauty care, tells AdFreak. "We're always looking for new ways to entertain and build brand loyalty with our fans, and Twitch is the perfect partner to help us reach the gaming and livestreaming culture in an authentic way. Plus, with scent names like Timber, Amber and Citron, we couldn't think of a better way to celebrate our new nature-inspired Fresher Collection."

The stream will run from 10 a.m. to sundown PT on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

After a strong showing at last month's One Show, Mullen Lowe's "World's Toughest Job" ad for American Greetings claimed the top prize tonight at the Effie Awards.

The Grand Effie winner outstripped competition from six other finalists: Always' "Like a Girl," from Leo Burnett; Old Spice's "Smellcome to Manhood," from Wieden + Kennedy; Newcastle Brown Ale's "If We Made It," from Droga5; British Airways' "Visit Mum," from Ogilvy & Mather; NBC Sports Network's  "It's Football. Just Not As We Know It," from The Brooklyn Brothers; and Milk-Bone's "Love. Say it With Milk-Bone," from FCB/Red.

"World's Toughest Job," a 4-minute video released just before Mother's Day, begins as a Skype job interview for a role with impossible hours and no pay only to morph into a tribute to moms. The goal was to drive consumers to create their own cards at American Greetings' Cardstore; orders increased by 20 percent, according to Mullen Lowe's entry. Also, the video has tallied 24.5 million views on YouTube since it was posted in April 2014.

The ad "possessed what I feel the very best ideas have in common: inevitability and surprise," said juror Todd Waterbury, chief creative officer at Target. "It found a completely original way of inspiring gratitude through reframing the experience and the human truth of motherhood."

Here's another look at the ad, which claimed a gold pencil at last month's One Show:

This year's entries were for campaigns that ran between September 2013 and August 2014, when the entries were due. The grand prize and other awards were presented during a dinner tonight at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.

Using a system that awards points for wins and finalist slots, the Effies also recognized the top, or "most effective," players among marketers (Procter & Gamble), brands (IBM), holding companies (WPP Group), agencies (Ogilvy & Mather), agency offices (Ogilvy New York) and independent shops (Droga5).

A complete list of the winners can be found here.

Jim Stengel's history with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity dates back to 2003, when, as global marketing chief of Procter & Gamble, he and a team of colleagues stormed the beach in search of creative inspiration. At the time, agency creative leaders vastly outnumbered chief marketing officers at the confab, but since then the marketing ranks have swelled. Stengel is no longer at P&G (he left in 2008), but he still goes to Cannes each year, to teach courses in the festival's CMO Accelerator Programme and Young Marketers Academy. This year, he'll also speak to marketing leaders at pharmaceutical companies. In a look back, Stengel explains why P&G first went to Cannes and how the consumer packaged goods giant's relationship with Wieden + Kennedy began.   

Adweek: Tell me about P&G's first trip to Cannes.
Stengel: We started with about 30 people in 2003. The objective was really to use the week to shake us up, to elevate our standards, to make us a much better partner, a much better client, to change our framework for what we thought excellent was. And it did all those things and more.

How did you meet Dan Wieden?
In year two, I asked Dan to come present to the P&G contingent. So, that would have been 2004. Then I started a relationship with Dan. I went out to visit him in Portland. I invited him to Cincinnati. He'll tell you this too. We both said, this is either going to lead to just amazing stuff or it's going to be the worst disaster in history. And really I think if you asked him right now, he would say the P&G relationship made them a better agency and certainly the relationship made P&G a far better client. And it has led to him getting a lot of CPG work, which I don't think ever would have happened without the P&G relationship.

What were the first assignments?
We gave them a fine fragrance in Europe, we gave them Iams' Eukanuba and we gave them Old Spice. We wanted to give them a variety of things to see how it would happen and, honestly, not all of it went terribly smoothly. But it made us just think about creative work differently, it made us think about measurement differently, made us think about research differently.

This 2010 ad from Wieden helped spark a sales revival of Old Spice and to date has generated a staggering 51 million views on YouTube:
 

So, in that context, Cannes has become more of a place to do business than just an awards show.
That's very fair to say. I'm on the board of AOL. We sold to Verizon. It hasn't closed yet, and I can tell you it's a very productive week for AOL, meeting clients, getting business done.

Why do you think that is?
Everybody is there for more than a fly-in and because everyone is there it makes for a really great concoction. You know, it's still a creative festival, it's still an awards show, of course. But because of the people there and the mood that they're in—they're open to new ideas, they're open to meeting different people in ways that they're not in day-to-day business. And that leads to some really good stuff.

Wieden + Kennedy has hacked the tagging function on Instagram to create an amusingly absurd "Choose Your Own Adventure" social game for Old Spice, filled with robots, retro monsters and meta jokes.
 

 

You awaken in a dark cave. In the distance you see a faint light, in front of you is an open bottle of Old Spice body wash. Go toward the light—maybe it's a way out? Grab the Old Spice? Tap image once to use tags to navigate.

A photo posted by Old Spice (@oldspice) on Jul 30, 2015 at 10:33am PDT

 
The story opens with the post above. Clicking on it reveals tags that function as the navigation, leading to a maze of newly created Instagram accounts where the story continues. Clicking on the Old Spice body wash in the first scene reveals the first of many comical dead ends, from which you have to backtrack and continue.

The game is pretty much one big joke, undermining itself at every turn and parodying the genre rather than presenting a real "adventure." The ending, in particular, is intentionally anticlimactic, centered on an inside joke about the ad budget for the project—very much in keeping with the brand's self-aware ethos.

Give it a spin, or click here to choose a different AdFreak adventure.

For the first time, Old Spice's two resident ad stars, Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa, are appearing in commercials together.

In a new campaign to help customers choose a scent to match their personalities, Mustafa and Crews star in seven spots slated to be released throughout the fall. 

For years, Old Spice has used both men to appeal to different consumers; Mustafa represents the charming hunk working his way into ladies' hearts while Crews' is testosterone personified with bulging muscles and non-stop shouting.  

"It's the first time in history that we've had both Isaiah and Terry together," said John Sebastian, marketing director for Old Spice. "The point of it is more than just bringing two guys together. It's about helping people who think about or use Old Spice pick the scent that best fits their personality by connecting scents with the personalities of Isaiah and Terry." 

The new spot from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland will launch on broadcast during the Sunday Aug. 9 National Football League Hall of Fame Game. Six more spots featuring Mustafa and Crews will be released later in the fall. 

This campaign focuses on three of the brand's most popular scents—Timber, Swagger and Bearglove—which are available in grooming products ranging from deodorant to two-in-one shampoo. 

CREDITS

Client: P+G/Old Spice

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Portland
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley, Craig Allen
Copywriter: Jarrod Higgins
Art Director: Matt Sorrell
Senior Producer: Lindsay Reed, Erika Madison
Production Assistant Nicole Kaptur
Account Team: Nick Pirtle, Georgina Gooley, Michael Dalton, Jess Monsey
Executive Creative Directors: Joe Staples, Mark Fitzloff
Agency Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz

Production
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Tom Kuntz
Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Line Producer: Emily Skinner
Director of Photography: Neil Shapiro

Editorial
Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Erik Laroi
Assistant Editor: Brendan Hogan
Post Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld

Visual Effects
Visual Effects Company: The Mill LA
Executive Producer: Sue Troyan
Visual Effects Producer: Dan Roberts
Production Coordinator: Kris Drenzek, Jillian Lynes
Shoot Supervisor: Tim Davies
Creative Director: Tim Davies
2D Lead Artist: Tim Davies
2D Artists: James Allen, Brad Scott, Dag Ivarsoy, Scott Johnson, Alex Candlish, Jale Parsons
3D Artists: Martin Rivera, Jason Jansky
Art Department: Kelsey Napier, Bretty Lopinsky, Matthew Dobrez

Music and Sound Design
Sound Design: Company Mackenzie Cutler
Sound Designer: Sam Shaffer

Mixing
Mix Company JOINT
Mixer: Noah Woodburn
Mix Company: LIME Studio
Mixer: Sam Casas

For years, Old Spice has used quirky spokespeople—robots, moms, fingers, or whatever else the brand could cook up—but Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa, with their wildly different personas, are certainly the two most memorable.

Old Spice's new campaign from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland pits the two pitchmen against each other, and the agency has just released the second installment in its Mustafa-Crews showdown:

Aside from their onscreen charm, how do these spokesmen stack up? We decided to put together a tale of the tape for both. Let's dig in:

Time with the brand:

Old Spice tapped Mustafa and Crews in 2010 for its "Smell Like a Man, Man" and "Odor Blocker" campaigns, respectively. They've both worked for the brand for five years, so that's a wash. 

Winner: Tie

Campaign appearances:

Mustafa has been in seven campaigns for Old Spice, with many videos included in each digital push. Crews, on the other hand, has been in five campaigns.

Mustafa's digital campaigns also have included more videos released at the same time, making his total view count higher than Crews'.

Winner: Mustafa.

Football career:

Prior to acting, both Mustafa, now 41, and Crews, 47, were affiliated with the NFL.

However, Mustafa (a starting wide receiver for Arizona State)  mainly served on practice squads for teams like the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns before dropping football to pursue acting around 2000.

Crews, a defensive end for Western Michigan, was an 11th round draft pick for the Los Angeles Rams, after which he played for the San Diego Chargers and Washington Redskins. In total, he played 32 games in the NFL.  

Winner: Crews.

Acting career:

Both branched out into entertainment at the end of their football careers. Crews has clearly been more successful in that arena, with 69 IMDB credits compared with Mustafa's 36.

Crews has also scored more high-profile Hollywood gigs, appearing in action series The Expendables, Arrested Development and memorable roles like Idiocracy's President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. 

Winner: Crews. 

Advertising awards:

Mustafa's inaugural "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" ad quickly became one of the most iconic ads of all time, sweeping many of the industry's top awards. It won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2010, the same year it took top honors at the Cannes Lions with a Grand Prix in Film and a Gold Pencil from The One Show. Crews' spots, while popular, haven't reached such levels of industry acclaim.

Winner: Mustafa

Social media stardom:

On social media, Crews has 443,000 Twitter followers and 377,000 Instagram followers. Mustafa's got 101,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 31,000 on Instagram. It's barely a contest.

Winner: Crews. 

Final score: 

• 3 points for Crews
• 2 point for Mustafa
• 1 tie

In the end, it seems Crews wins out. But the numbers obviously don't tell the whole story. Which one would you say is the best of the brand's pitchmen?

Not many brands could pull off a campaign that escalates the weirdness in each new spot. But anything can happen in an Old Spice campaign, and transforming Terry Crews into an angry woodpecker is just one of the loony things in the brand's latest effort. 

Earlier this summer, Wieden + Kennedy launched its latest Old Spice work, pitting the brand's two pitchmen against each other. In a battle for consumer hearts—and dollars—the men are squaring off against each other to help consumers match their personalities to the right scent.



Crews' and Mustafa's differing personas make the competition fun, as they lay their version of charm on thick. And of course, getting to see Crews' take on Isaiah Mustafa's "Hello ladies" is a delightful quirk of this particular effort. 

Fans of ESPN's SportsCenter will find Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa behind the show's anchor desk tonight, but they're not there to talk through highlight reels.

Old Spice's resident pitchmen will battle for control of the show's desk in one final fight as their months-long rivalry campaign from Wieden + Kennedy.

A 60-second ad, "Truce," brings the campaign's narrative—Crews and Mustafa's contrasting personalities representing different Old Spice scents—to a close when it airs tonight during SportsCenter:

"After successfully launching the 'Make a Smellmitment' campaign, and stoking the fires of competition throughout the NFL season, we knew that a single spot premiere for our finale wouldn't be enough," said Kate DiCarlo, Old Spice spokeswoman.

The SportsCenter takeover is a part of a larger partnership between Old Spice and ESPN. Old Spice produced eight minutes of content featuring Crews and Mustafa for SportsCenter fans.

"This takeover is particularly exciting given the true integration between the brands," said DiCarlo. "Though rare, SportsCenter has been taken over by advertisers before, and the set has been used in very limited capacity, but this is the first time in ESPN's history that a full takeover has been customized in this way." 

According to the brand, the spokesmen rivarly campaign has garnered 27 million views online. 

Next for Old Spice, the brand will continue its "Make a Smellmitment" campaign through "ridiculous football inventions introduced by the NFL's top players​, including Clay Matthews, Vernon Davis, ​Drew Brees, Andy Dalton, Antonio Brown and more on the players' social media channels and Old Spice's Tumblr page," explained DiCarlo. 

Sweat. It's the reason men have never quite reached their full potential ... until now, Old Spice's latest campaign proclaims. 

Its new line of body wash and antiperspirant comes with a new spokesman, who can't be called the brightest, but at least he seems aware of that. Created by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., two new ads offer a fresh, self-deprecating twist on the absurd bravado that has defined Old Spice's advertising since Isaiah Mustafa first rode in on his white horse almost six years ago.

This guy, though, has much better modes of transport. 

In one commercial, he crests the oceans on the back of a whale, volleying tennis balls served through its blowhole, while paparazzi snap photos. Meanwhile, a voiceover of his inner thoughts waxes philosophical on how far is too far in terms of pushing himself. 



In the second ad, he finds himself past that limit, having built a rocket car without any working knowledge of engineering. "The most valuable lesson I have ever learned is that if you fill your brains with knowledge, then there won't be any room for dreams," says the hero in what is arguably the campaign's best line. (In a self-mocking twist, it also feels a bit like a piss-take of W+K London's classic "Impossible Dream" spot for Honda.) 



The delightfully tongue-in-cheek macho idiocy is cleverly written, on-brand and appropriate to the product line, called the Hardest Working Collection. Even its tagline, "Legendary Protection for Legendary Men," can't help but evoke Barney Stinson, Neil Patrick Harris's slick—but goofy—playboy persona from How I Met Your Mother (who happens to love all things legendary.)

The work also joins a canon of other ironically suave men in advertising, which includes the extraordinary male lead in W+K Amsterdam's "Legends" campaign for Heineken, and Dos Equis's "Most Interesting Man in the World," created by Havas (formerly Euro RSCG) and the godfather of modern man-vertising.

Old Spice's Legendary Man is foolhardy, but brash and charming enough to earn his place in the lineup. Though now that Mustafa and fellow Old Spice spokesman Terry Crews have buried the hatchet on their rivalry, we can't help but wonder how the new kid on the block would fare against either of them.

CREDITS
Client: Old Spice

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Creative Directors: Jason Bagley | Craig Allen
Copywriter: Nick Morrissey
Art Director: Matt Sorrell
Additional Creative (on Whale only): Jarrod Higgins
Senior Producer: Lindsay Reed
Producer: Monica Ranes
Account Team: Liam Doherty | Michael Dalton
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff | Joe Staples
Head of Production: Ben Grylewicz

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks/Revolver
Director: Steve Rogers
Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Producer: Pip Smart
DP: Mandy Walker
Production Designer: Leon Morland

Editorial Company: Mackenzie Cutler
Editor: Gavin Cutler
Asst. Editor: Brendan Hogan
Executive Producer: Sasha Hirschfeld

VFX Company: The Mill | LA
Executive Producer: Enca Kaul
Senior Producer: Dan Roberts
Production Coordinator: Kris Drenzek
Creative Director | Shoot Supervisor | 2D Lead Artist: Tim Davies
3D Lead Artists: Tom Graham
3D Lead Artists: Phill Mayer, Hartwell Durfor, Kenzie Chen, Yorie Kumalasari, Brett Angelillis, Mike DiNocco, Katie Yancey, Blake Guest, Jenna Kind, Monique Espinoza, Steven Olson, Milton Ramirez
2D Artists: John Price, Robert Murdock, Don Kim, Dag Ivarsoy, Jeff Langlois, Ashely Forbito, Adam Lambert, Daniel Thuresson, Tim Robbins
Art Department: Brett Lopinsky, Laurence Konishi, Kelsey Napier
Head of 3D: John Leonti

Sound Design
Company | Sound Designer: Mackenzie Cutler | Sam Shaffer
Company | Sound Designer : Barking Owl | Michael Anastasi

Final Mix
Studio: Lime Studios
Engineer: Samuel Casas
Assistant Engineer: Mark Nieto
Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

Color Transfer
Company: The Mill | LA
Artist: Adam Scott
Color EP: Thatcher Peterson
Color Producer: Antonio Hardy
Color Coordinator: Diane Valera

Wieden + Kennedy is doing a fun little real-time Twitter stunt for Old Spice today.

It began with the brand asking a simple question:

If you could ask your future self one question what would it be?

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) January 27, 2016

Fans who replied were in for a surprise, though, as Old Spice has been creating custom Twitter accounts for their future selves—and then having the future selves comically answer the questions. (The future selves also have futurey names and profile pics.)

The whole thing has that freewheeling, crazy vibe that comes with churning out absurdist content on a tight deadline. Check out some the present-self/future-self interactions below. 

@slstevens3@OldSpice hmmmmm. I was about to ask you the same question.

— SL Stevens (@slstevens3000) January 27, 2016

@Skwirlyskwirl@OldSpice We've been living off royalties from the digital grilled cheese we invented in 2043.

— Risu Skwirl (@ZkwirlyZkwirl) January 27, 2016

@TheGomyde@OldSpice Except for all the Old Spice, absolutely not.

— Lucas Gomyde (@GomydeTheUpset) January 27, 2016

@charlesv@OldSpice If we're abiding by the New World Pizza standards, 37. But if I include injectable pizza the number is closer to 385,928

— Charles V (@charlesvamatic) January 27, 2016

@samguaiana@OldSpice Do you mean Water® or Water™? Things are a little different now.

— Sam (@Xsamus_guaianux) January 27, 2016

Isaiah Mustafa and Terry Crews have had a stranglehold on the title of Old Spice guy in recent years, even battling each other for it. But now, you should really meet Colin Hoell.

He's not appearing in big-budget videos for the Procter & Gamble brand. He's not even a commercial actor. He's a mobile product designer at Imgur. But he just volunteered to be the face of Old Spice's new gallery-style ad on Imgur, in which he models the "do's, don'ts and please don'ts" of hair care.

Imgur came up with the concept and presented it to Old Spice, which has run gallery-style GIFs on the image-sharing site before, including a campaign with Crews last year. Old Spice liked the new concept and approved it.

"Imgur users love to give one another advice—practical, or not—so Imgur's creative team found a genius, hilarious way to bring Old Spice into the advice-giving conversation on Imgur," a rep there tells AdFreak.



Old Spice even let Imgur cast the ads, which is where Hoell comes in. "He gladly stepped up when the team decided we would use Imgur models in the ad," the Imgur rep says. "He has really nice locks." 

Imgur users seem to agree. Many have pegged him as a Ryan Reynolds look-alike, a notion Hoell himself (perhaps jokingly) doesn't dispute. "This guy's a low-budget Ryan Reynolds," one commenter wrote in the comments. To which Hoell (whose Imgur handle is montypython004) replied: "Ryan Reynolds is a low-budget me is what I think you meant."

Check out the full post to see all three of Hoell's impressive hair-modeling GIFs, along with an image of a very glamourous cat. 

If you like mapping your runs and wish someone would reward you for your cardio cartography, Old Spice might have you covered.

Old Spice Dream Runner, launched today, is a mobile website created by the brand and agency Wieden + Kennedy. Use it on your neighborhood run, and it will draw a map of your route. Upload the resulting shape, and Old Spice might send you a gift vaguely shaped like the thing you drew.

Here's a video to help explain:

The site was made to promote Old Spice's Hardest Working Collection of men's bodywash and deodorants.

The brand has already begun awarding prizes, with some creative interpretations clearly going on behind the scenes: 

You can check out the full gallery of submitted and rewarded runs on the Dream Runner site.