Brand New World

When you help build a Brand you get to be a tad possessive about it. Whether you’re the client, the agency or even the consumer it often becomes personal, we want our favourite things to remain the same, indeed, as Garth in Wayne’s World once put it “We fear change.”

And often rightly so. as Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit Inc in California puts it, “Change is never easy. So when you decide to take a company through a major re-launch, you can't do it halfway. It will require all the passion that you can bring to it, and the best communication skills that you have.”

When William Lightfoot Schultz created his first fragrances in the 1930’s they were sensible, mature products, they smelt the way you wanted your father to, or even your grandfather. And their advertising was grown up and responsible too, the most adventure his consumers were invited to have was riding a white horse through the surf. For 70 years Old Spice was the veritable solid backbone of cosmetic advertising, not for it the sexy throw away attractions of younger Brands.

So when in June 1990 that other grand old man of cosmetics Procter & Gamble bought the company it was seen as a perfect match. Until some Brand manager with a glint in his eye for change got his hands on the Brand. The original Old Spice was repackaged as “classic Scent” discarding the traditional white glass bottles for plastic, selling it under the downright racy banner, "The original. If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."

And finally the latest offering has reached self-pastiche, it opens on a metro-sexual cappuccino guy in a towel emerging from a shower, as he talks the scene transforms around him reflecting his voice-over:

“Hello ladies,
Look at your man,
now back to me,
now back at your man,
now back to me,
sadly he isn’t me,
but if he stopped using lady scented body-wash
and switched to Old Spice
he could smell like he is me.
look down, back up.
where are you?
you are on a boat, with the man your man could smell like.
what’s in your hand,
back at me, I have it,
it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love,
look again, the tickets are now diamonds.
anything is now possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady.
…I’m on a horse.”

“Classic Old Spice, Smells like a man, man”

Besides the brilliant Horse line the sheer number of pack shots in a parody commercial can be outstanding. The redesigned bottle was nice but the advertising re-launch, with it’s tongue firmly planted in its cheek, has opened the Brand up to that wonderfully lucrative teenage and early twenties market. Something the old Old Spice could only have dreamed of. Catch a whiff of it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZOm2YhOI4c

Re-invention is a great, if often precarious way to reinvigorate a Brand as Scott Bedbury of Brand Fool in Seattle says, “You need self-confidence. And you need flexibility. You also need to know yourself, especially your shortcomings. Don't try to do something that in your heart you know you can't do.” And he should know what he’s talking about being the driving force behind the Nike “Just Do It” campaign that took them from a $750 million company to a $5 billion, and Starbucks from 390 stores to 1600.

He remains healthily sceptical that everyone can follow his lead and rebrand with success. “I know lots of people who are out there trying to "reinvent" themselves.” He says, “But many of those people won't be happy, because they're not pursuing something that they intuitively love to do. They're pursuing something for money, and they're creating hollow companies, companies with no soul. Doing work that lines up with your values is critical.”

Reinvention and rebranding don’t always work out, even with millions of dollars behind it, a new shiny tin and Bill Cosby as spokesman, “New Coke” was such an appalling disaster in 1985 that it was dragged back from streets leaving Real Coke consumers spitting and belching. See the Cosby commercials at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YvmN1hvNA&feature=related

What Coke had failed to grasp was that there wasn’t anything wrong with the original. Much the same reason that Crystal Pepsi floundered so spectacularly in 1992, if it ain’t broken, etc.

Given the recent fall from grace by Toyota I wonder whether the CEO’s mea culpa will be enough to reinvigorate the Brand, I certainly hope so, not just because coming clean is a good thing to see in a multi-national corporation, but also because I really miss that grinning boxer in the ads.

More interesting perhaps will be how our own President manages to re-launch Brand Zuma successfully given his recent disclosures. Perhaps he should take a leaf from those politicians of old who, when faced with a crisis, would rush off for a photo op kissing baby’s foreheads, something he seems to have a surfeit of suddenly.