You’ve seen those commercials, haven’t you? The one’s with an iconic figure or celebrity endorsing a product or company by saying hilarious and catchy phrases? The companies that make these commercials earn plenty of money off of them and bring in more customers easily and quickly. The easy thing about it? They don’t need to include any information about their company, yet because of how hilarious the commercial is, the viewer thinks, “Wow! This is funny! I’ll go with this company!” One company that does this is Old Spice. Old Spice successfully uses three steps to gain customers by using celebrity endorsement to get the viewers attention, comedic lines to capture the audience, and a series of commercials to keep the consumer.

First, we’ll see how celebrity endorsement can catch someones attention. Many different celebrities have appeared in Old Spices commercials. Such as Neil Patrick Harris and Terry Crews. When a celebrity someone likes is endorsing a product, that can definitely influence whether a viewer is going to pay attention. Not to mention when a group of celebrities are in the same commercial, it produces a bandwagon effect, saying, “Look here! All these celebrities are using this product. You should too!” So, you can see how celebrity endorsement can catch a views attention, and even produce a bandwagon effect.
Next, we’ll see how Old Spice uses comedic lines to capture it’s audience. If one were to go to youtube.com, one would be able to find the Old Spice channel. Statistics show that Old Spice’s first commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa was a great success, gathering millions of views in just days.1 What brought in so many views so quickly? It’s all in the lines. The comedic lines were something that no one had done before, and it was a form a random comedy that was random, but not overly random. It was a form of comedy that people enjoyed, and it quickly became popular, and it was thanks to the comedic lines. Lines such as, “Ladies, look at your man. Now back to me. Look at your man NOW BACK TO ME,” make Old Spice commercials funny. Not to mention sudden changes like, “Where are you now? You’re on a boat,” and, “I’m on a horse.” Although comedy like this has not been used in commercials before, this is what give Old Spice it’s success. By introducing new comedy, it pleased it’s audience and, thus, captured the audience. A rise in stocks for P&G (Proctor and Gamble) prove this. During the week the commercial was released, P&G’s stock took a jump $1.69.2 So, you can see that through comedic lines, Old Spice can capture and audience.

Last of all, we’ll look at how making the commercials a series can help keep it’s consumers. When a funny commercial is released, don’t you sometimes think, “I wish they had more of these commercials”? There are different companies that do this, such as Geico’s “Could switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance?” commercials. By making their commercials into a series, Old Spice has kept their consumers hooked by making a series of similar, down-right funny commercials. So, you can see that make commercials into a series has kept people hooked.

Overall, you can see how Old Spice uses their commercials successfully to gain customers.. You saw how they used celebrities to draw in attention. Then you saw how they used comedic lines to capture the audience. Last of all, you saw how they used a series of commercials to keep the consumers hooked. Through these points, you can see how Old Spice’s funny commercials worked, without having to provide any information about themselves.


Sources:
1 YouTube - OldSpice's Channel ? ." YouTube.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/user/OldSpice>

2 "The Procter & Gamble Company: NYSE:PG quotes & news - Google Finance."Google Finance. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 May 2011. <http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:PG>.