Old Spice Assessment

Explain how viewpoints and ideologies are communicated by the media language used in adverts refer to Source C (Old Spice) to support your answer.

The fragrance industry was valued at USD 31.4 billion in 2019 and is at an AGR of 3.9% until 2025 and is still growing. this makes it an incredibly popular and dynamic industry that is always growing and changing. This means that fragrance brands like Old Spice will have to change and update their brand in order to keep up with this market. Old Spice used transformation rebranding in this advertisement to do so.

Firstly, Old Spice uses visual gags such as a man getting carried away by crabs, a man's head being buried in the sand, and someone being poked by Poseidon's trident to present themselves as funny. The dominant reading of this is that Old Spice is a funny brand and by extension that people who use Old Spice are funny too. This means that the audience will go out and buy Old Spice in order to seem funnier. The woman sunbathing on the beach is also meant to be seen as funny as it is poking fun of traditional perfume ads that this advert is trying not to associate with. Although this plays into feminism theory as the woman is sexualized even if in a satirical way that only an educated audience will understand and appreciate. This also fits with Old Spice's new brand image as a new and less serious brand than it used to be as its advertisements don't take itself too seriously as they used to.

Secondly Old Spice presents itself as a brand that respects tradition. This is done in multiple forms in the ad, firstly the product itself keeps the old logo for Old Spice that has been used for decades. Old Spice kept this logo to let the audience know that they still care for their tradition. The advert also uses the same sans serif font for the Old Spice name. This is the same traditional font used for all of the older Old Spice products and advertisements. This is important in this advertisement as it is after a transformation rebranding where they have gone from an older 40–60-year-old demographic to a younger 18–34-year-old demographic; By keeping these traditional landmarks of the Old Spice brand it means they aren't completely alienating their Old Audience and let them know that it is still the well trusted brand they know.

However Old Spice chooses to present its brand as a new and innovative fragrance for a younger 18–34-year-old audience. This is implied in multiple ways through the ad such as the capsizing ship which is used to present the old brand sinking. The old cast away is not only an intertextual reference to the movie Cast Away, but also implies that the old man is the old audience that has been left stranded while the newer younger audience is welcomed in to use the product. This is further suggested through the use of the younger celebrity model (Isaiah Mustafa) who will more accurately represent the new audience than an older model would. This also appeals to the women who make up 70% who buy male fragrances as he is challenging to men but alluring to women so that the men will buy it in order to be like him and women will buy it so that their partners will be like him.

The exotic nature of the brand is used as it has had an increase in demand. This theme is shown through the exotic island location with beaches, palm trees and volcanos as well as the Bahamas brand on the product.