Brand Update : Thru a horrible campaign,Old Spice asks you to be Mantastic

In my marketing communications class, I used to show the globally famous " The man, your man could smell like" campaign featuring the Old Spice man Isaiah Mustafa ( watch here) as an example of a highly successful marketing campaign in 2010. Three years after, in 2013, P&G started showing that advertisement in the Indian market. The disconnect had started.

To my surprise, the brand owner decided to adapt the globally successful campaign to Indian market with Milind Soman taking the place of Isaiah Mustafa. And the outcome was hopeless.

Watch the ad here : Old Spice India ad 1
                               Old Spice India ad 2

I would say that Old Spice has done a horrible job in adapting a global campaign. I am not sure what the agency had in mind when they conceived this campaign ? While the original global ad had a strategy behind it, the Indian brand failed miserably in making any sense and  succeeded killing the brand's whatever image that is left in the Indian consumer's mind. 

There is total confusion in what the brand is aiming to convey and to whom ? While the Old Spice man from original campaign talked to the ladies with his famous " Hello Ladies " opening, the Old Spice Indian man doesn't know what he is talking about and to whom ?  And sadly at the end of it, the brand talks about " attraction " thus falling into the  same language that other brands are talking about. 

When a brand adapts a globally successful campaign, its inevitable that people will compare and its brand and agencies duty to do justice to the original creative. Here in my opinion, the brand fell flat in the adaptation. The ads are neither attractive nor share-able and is desperately trying to be funny which is sad. The new tagline Smell Mantastic is as horrible as the campaign itself. 

 The new campaign had virtually killed the earlier brand image of Old Spice. But instead of creating a new image, this adaptation had put a confused picture of the brand interms of the image. While the 2010 global campaign put Old Spice in a leading position in western market because the ad theme and message connected with the consumer. But thats not the case here. The adapted campaign neither connects nor conveys any message or makes sense. Hope in the subsequent ads, the creatives will do justice to the brand.

What a horrible waste of a good brand !