Situation

Old Spice was facing a business problem: guys weren’t seeing them as having long-lasting products. Sure, the brand smelled nice and the ads were funny, but guys were unwilling to risk a sweat and odor breakthrough, and were turning to other brands.

So Old Spice developed a product specifically for it’s long-lasting benefits: Sweat Defense AP Spray with 48-hour protection to fight sweat and odor for a ridiculously long time.

Brief:

In the unpredictability of life, you never really know how long you’ll need your APDO to last. You can’t risk a sweat and odor breakthrough. Our task was to develop a breakthrough campaign that dramatized the consequences of not wearing Old Spice.

Objective

Change perceptions of Old Spice from a brand that doesn't provide long-lasting protection, to one that’s synonymous with it.

We took a time machine back to the 1980s and brought Dolph Lundgren into the future to star as the new Old Spice guy. Just kidding, we deepfaked him using computers and magic. A deepfaked Dolph Lungren stars in a classic 80’s action sequence full of muscles, sweat and more sweat. Like all 80s films, the action star comes out on top. Everyone else gets a face full of sweat.

We leaned into the high stakes world of 80’s action movies to dramatize the consequences of not using Old Spice. In this life and death battle with sweat, the film style, location, music score, wardrobe, and even the end card all exemplify that era. The highlight of it all was casting iconic 80’s action villain Dolph Lundgren as our star talent.

For the launch campaign of Hang On, we leaned into the action movie theme of the spot to counter porgram one of the biggest media moments of the year, the Super Bowl. We leaned into entertainment and gaming destinations that provided key contextual alignments such as weekend movie marathons and OTT streaming as well as a video blitz across key digital publishers that focus on entertainment - IGN, Marvel, Complex and Crunchyroll. This approach allowed us to bring the action packed intensity of forgetting your OS spray to relevant contexts and stand out amongst the February noise.

Over two months, we drove over 650MM+ earned PR impressions including coverage in People, AdWeek, AdAge and Men’s Health. We also received 67MM+ video views across digital channels, and 286K+ clicks to retail, driving significant momentum around a brand new product for Old Spice.

Over two months, we drove over 67MM+ video views across digital channels, and 286K+ clicks to retail, driving significant momentum around a brand new product for Old Spice.