Super Bowl games' craze makes it a viable platform on which every marketer wants to launch their campaigns. Over the last decade and a half, the big game has attracted tens to hundreds of millions of viewers each year, making it a significant opportunity for business enterprises to reach a huge audience. Moreover, the Super Bowl has a rich diversity of viewers in terms of ethnicity, age, sex, preferences, and social classes (Schnoor, 2020). With the huge viewership of the game, any organization with enough resources at its disposal will want to leverage the huge marketing opportunity. Broadcasting a 30-second commercial is highly-priced. According to Alexander (2018), a half a minute advert during the 2018 Super Bowl game commanded about $5 million, making the commercials more important than the game itself. Further, the author notes that 1 in 3 viewers tune in to watch the commercials and have less interest in the game. The significance of the Super Bowl to marketers thus cannot be overlooked. Old Spice Body Wash ad that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl game had the most views, 54.9 million, in recent years (Alexander, 2018). Factoring that a Super Bowl game can attract up to 100 million viewers, then the Old Spice ad was largely effective.
The Old Spice ad interacts with various groups such as social groups, income groups, and subcultures in a multifaceted manner. Fundamentally, the designers aimed to have all groups' interests mentioned above captured in the ad. First, the Old Spice commercial was able to capture the interest of all social groups. Whether study groups, coworkers, schoolmates, sports personalities, or members of religious groups, among others, are well represented in this ad. Women in these social groups would want the men in their lives to have nice body odor. Second, the commercial captures all income groups; upper, middle, and lower classes. Any woman, despite their income group, would fancy having their men also smell nice. Similarly, when it comes to subculture, one realizes that the Old Spice commercial used a mixture of humor and sex appeals. Various subcultures decode sex appeal differently. The ad's sex appeal was majorly male-driven, implying that the marketing team understood the differences in purchase behaviors between men and women. According to Kluch (2015), 60 percent of shoppers who buy men's body wash products are women, a statistic that transcends across all subcultures. The hyper-masculinity aspect depicted in the ad with a focus on hegemonic ideals shows how it interacts with the subcultures. The Old Spice commercial shows the gender and masculinity of the targeted subcultures. Principally, the US subcultures are characterized by ideals of masculinity that the commercial's designers leveraged.
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Although the Old Spice commercial markets men's body wash, the target audience is women. Before the 2010 Old Spice commercial during the Super Bowl, the product was majorly marketed to older men (Kluch, 2015). The company realized that there was a need to change this model to increase its market share. In 2010, it launched a commercial that targeted a younger generation with robust spending habits. In the advert, a good-looking man informs the female audience that their man could have a body nice body odor like him if he showered with Old Spice body wash. One recognizes that the target market is women because of the ad's masculinity and sex undertones (Kluch, 2015). In the commercial, there is a shirtless man with a well-toned body to capture the eye of female viewers. Also, as mentioned above, women are the biggest purchasers of men's toiletries, such as body wash, which explains why the commercial went viral. The marketers understood that many men who love to watch the Super Bowl idolize Isaiah Mustafa, while women would be awed by his looks and great body smell courtesy of Old Spice. Hence, the commercial prompted women to buy Old Spice body wash for their men and have that nice smell close to them. Moreover, the choice of words and alluring scenarios are clear indicators that women are the primary targets for the ad (Alexander, 2018). For example, at the start of the ad, Mustafa is shirtless in the bathroom, then on a boat holding diamonds, and last on a horse without a shirt, all leverage his masculine body and good looks to attract female viewership.
Consumer behavior and call to action are the key aspects that shaped the success of this commercial. The target market is the female viewership of the Super Bowl game, during which it premiered. Research has shown that most purchase decisions are made by women (Bradshaw et al., 2020). This agrees with Kluch's (2015) findings that women make about 60% of products associated with men, such as body wash gels. While aiming for a younger generation, Old Spice marketers understood that women are key in purchasing household items. However, it is the call to action that defines the commercial's success, making it buzzworthy. Mustafa tells women that if they want their men to smell like him, they should buy them an Old Spice body wash gel. The ad is subtly sexualized by using a shirtless man, which, coupled with the choice of words and the target audience, made it attract huge female viewership.
Summary
The Old Spice ad that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl game is an example of an excellent marketing strategy to increase the market share of the company's product. Irrefutably, given the huge viewership that the annual football game attracts, any marketer with sufficient resources covets the opportunity to advertise their product (s). The Old Spice commercial did not discriminate against any group, but its message resonated across all social groups. The ad's target market is the key reason behind its exemplary results. Old Spice's marketers who developed the commercial understood that women purchase most men's body products. Using the themes of masculinity as evidenced by the ad's message carrier, Mustafa, coupled with the choice of words, it is apparent that women were the primary target audience. The call-to-action caps off the well-designed commercial. Mustafa relying on his football fame, masculine body, and good looks, asks women to buy their men Old Spice so that they can smell like him. That was a sublime marketing ingenuity.
References
Alexander, R. (2018). 10 Of the Most Viral Super Bowl Ads of All Time . https://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-of-the-most-viral-super-bowl-ads-of-all-time-2018-02-05
Bradshaw, H. K., Rodeheffer, C. D., & Hill, S. E. (2020). Scarcity, Sex, and Spending: Recession Cues Increase Women's Desire for Men Owning Luxury Products and Men's Desire to Buy Them. Journal of Business Research , 120 , 561-568.
Kluch, Y. (2015). ‘The Man Your Man Should Be Like’: Consumerism, Patriarchy and The Construction of Twenty-First-Century Masculinities in 2010 and 2012 Old Spice Campaigns. Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture , 6 (3), 361-377.
Schnoor, A. (2020). Are Super Bowl Ads Worth It? Why Marketing During the Big Game Matters . https://bettermarketing.pub/are-super-bowl-ads-worth-it-5841e4620e4f
