The old v/s new man of 'Old Spice' battle it online

The campaign conceptualised by W+K was flooded with people participating for their pick.

Neha Saraiya | Delhi | August 2, 2011

If you would have following twitter or YouTube closely for last ten days, you wouldn't have missed the social battle of man V/s man. The ploy of the fight is two warriors muffling for their righteous win of 'The Old spice guy' wherein the first combatant is dark, manly, suave, and charismatic the other on the other hand show offs long tresses with a soft facade curve and a demeanour face for a romance novel.

Titled as 'Mano a Mano en El Baño'  (hand-to-hand in the bathroom), the mêlée between the two lashed out last month,  when Fabio Lanzoni (or warrior No.2) was chosen as the propagating new face for Old Spice's online ad campaign.

And just when the fans were, adjusting to this new eye-candy, another video was uploaded on youtube, wherein the new found Fabio dares to challenge the other hunk.

The challenge donned was immediately accepted and was responded back with a boom.

The original front man or the warrior1 (a.k.a Isaiah Mustafa) has been the chiselled, sexy and a ladies favourite frontrunner for the brand for past two years now. P&G first introduced him in its ads during SuperBowl 2010, and since then his hypnotism on screen has worked wonders for the brand.  Infact a phrase said by him 'I'm on a horse' has been galled as one of the best one liner.

And within one week, the check was: 7,450 followers on Twitter for Fabio (http://twitter.com/#!/fabiooldspices) and 136,000 followers (http://twitter.com/#!/oldspice) for Mustafa. Created by Wieden+Kennedy, the Portland, the campaign didn't quite particularly outshine the last year campaign 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' that attracted millions of watch for the brand, but is a heavy-weight for many other reasons.

Firstly, the campaign was not only creatively conceived but was brilliantly executed. Now, that's not much of a boasting, as the manner in which it was presented to the audiences, succumbed for an action. Be it in the form of like button for your choice, the communiqué like 'The old Old Spice guy was no good.  He give you diamonds from a clam fish?  Dumb', or 'Fabio challenges you, old Old Spice guy!  9am tomorrow, Internet', and 'Don't muscle on another man's territory, especially when that man's muscles have their own muscles' were intelligently placed to arouse a hit from the seer.

Then creating a gig, with people actually believing and supporting their pick is a task when even the names of the movies are also decided through social campaigns. Thus triggering that click among the herd of online innovative campaigns is plausible. (Much to the fact that it's an old spice campaign!)

A promotional video was also uploaded to maintain the curiosity levels with an élan of a face off on 26^th july, 2011 at 12 pm EST between the two, that was further posted to Reddit, The Daily What, The Huffington Post, and The Daily Mail.

And if you thought it off as melodramatic, there's more to it. As on 28^th july, the agency released yet another video 'This must end'.  The 4-minute video declared the old old spice guy as the winner. As the commercial showed him bantering in a non-violent way with handing over a helium balloon to the 'wanna be' old spice guy, that takes him off to space where he finds his clones.

And now, when the result is declared, the commercial has left the industry to talk about it effectiveness this year. But excusing it, we would surely 'do not miss you Fabio!' J

Neha@BestMediaInfo.com

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