Old Spice Commercial

Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

The commercial observed in this essay is the first of a series of Old Spice commercials. Old Spice is a brand of deodorant and body wash – other male hygiene products as well – that came to the public’s attention via the comical advertisement methods they used. Instead of going to stereotypical way and sexualizing females for their advertisement purposes – presumably a tactic that would work better, considering who their audience is – they went the route of using a sexually appealing male to attempt to sell their product. The commercial uses Ethos, Pathos and Logos in the form of irony to sell their product in an appealing fashion to their audience.

Ethos is defined as describing the guiding

tenets that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. In this context, Ethos and Pathos are being used – somewhat interchangeably – to apply to the consumer’s attraction towards the model or spokesperson selling the product. Looks are commonly used to appeal to people and what they find attractive. According to the Association for Consumer Research, studies suggest that there is an idea amongst the general population that “what is beautiful is good”. While many studies have shown that attractive spokespeople for commercials do tend to sell the product more, there are also studies that fail to produce or show that same effect. It is generally believed that this rule of attractiveness applies – that if the commercial uses someone with good looks, there is a greater rate of sales for that particular product. This aspect of the commercial is what appeals to the Ethos of the individuals watching. If they are of the character that succumbs to the appeal of the commercial, there is a greater likelihood that they have fallen into the advertisement’s desired outcome and will likely go out and purchase the product being sold. This also ties into the attitude towards the brand of the product being sold and the credibility of the company selling it and the advertisement company.
Commercials feed on the Ethos of their consumers. If the consumer watching has a character trait that lets them find appeal in certain commercials and rhetorical devices used, then they are more likely to fall victim to the psychology applied in this form of media. If the consumer realizes that the commercial is a scam, there is a less likely chance of them investigating the product and ultimately buying it. The person watching has to be of a certain character or mind to realize what psychology is being applied in certain advertisements. Most of the time, this tactic works. There is a large connection between advertisement and the audience that advertisement is talking to.
In the case of this Old Spice commercial, the audience is both men and women. They put an interesting twist on it, however, and talk to the women watching instead of the men. The spokesperson of the commercial talks to the women of the audience in hopes that they will convince “their man” to go out and buy this body wash today. They appeal to the idea of a relationship and the dynamics that take place in that social situation. They, the advertisers, have realized that women can persuade their counterpart to, in this case, buy something that will make them smell better. The advertisers also realize that if a man sees his girlfriend watching this commercial drooling over the attractive spokesperson talking about body wash and smelling good, that the man will likely go out and buy this product to smell like the man that had captivated his girlfriend’s attention. The jealousy plays nicely into the Pathos that the advertisers use in the commercial and ties the two together.
Pathos is described as an appeal to the audience’s emotions. In the case of this commercial, the Pathos being used is in the form of desire. The women watching desire a man that smells good and looks like the man on the screen – they desire their man to be attractive and desirable. The symbolism in the commercial comes in the form of the objects that the man is holding. Ask anyone and they will say that diamonds are a girls’ best friend – the commercial materializes the diamonds in the palm of the man’s hand and uses them to appeal to the audience. The commercial uses it as something shiny to catch the eye and draw the woman in accompanied by the attractive man selling the product.
In commercials especially, visual aids are just as important as the emotional and psychological ones.

They draw the person in further, if only for a few seconds, and attempt to sell the product. With that being said, this commercial seems to almost be straight out of a fairy tale. It has, of course, the attractive man meant to be the prince. At one point, he is actually on a pure white horse riding in front of the setting sun. They also use symbolism in the sense that a “prince” should be able to make any girls’ dreams come true. This man makes diamonds appear in his palm along with the “two tickets to the thing that you love”. He is at one point on a yacht, a clear symbol of wealth and financial stability, and he is always in the most majestic of scenery. These are all traits that young girls and even young women idolize in the perfect man – pairing that with a product makes them believe that they could have that dream man if they bought that product. That, in its own way, is another symbol in the commercial – the fact that the women watching were looking for their Prince Charming. The advertisers drew the women in with the promise of that man with the purchase of their

product.
The Irony of this commercial comes into play in many aspects both visually and otherwise.

It also is the Logos element of this commercial. Irony is defined as the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. In most commercials, it is normally the man of the audience that is being appealed to with sexually attractive females on screen. This is done depending on the audience and depending on the reaction the advertisers think that they will receive in using a sexually appealing female. In some commercials, you do see both men and women, but statistically, it has mostly been women. In this commercial, it is the women of the audience being appealed to by a sexually attractive male on screen. The advertisers reversed the roles in a comedic way – not one that was not usual at all. They took a typical advertising mechanism and turned it on its head. They kept the commercial lighthearted, but the message was sent nonetheless and the audience listened. Women were being appealed to in hopes that they could get their man to go out and buy this body wash even though it was a man’s

product.
Another way in which this commercial used irony was in the audience that it was appealing to. Old Spice is a man’s hygiene product and yet the commercial blatantly appeals to the women in the audience. In all of their commercials, not just the one that was analyzed in this paper, they do the same thing. They appeal to the woman watching and almost completely ignore the man. In actuality, their appeals to the man are more in the undertones of the commercial. They appeal to the men watching in the sense that they are showing an attractive man that they could become if they used their product. They are appealing to the men with an ideal that most men aspire to be. Because the irony overshadows that subtle undertone, most do not realize that that is a tactic normally used on women to advertise products. Normally, it is the woman being told that there is something in her appearance to be changed into what has been advertised on TV. With this, the Old Spice commercial once again uses irony and puts a twist on an otherwise normal commercial.
The people behind the Old Spice commercials were well versed in the tactics that they needed to use in order to woo their audience. They used Ethos, Pathos, and Logos accordingly and created one of the more comical commercials of today. They played upon the character traits of their audience, and the emotions behind the audience’s desire. In all of that, they put an ironic twist on it and turned the commercial into something memorable.