What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video i
want to show you a brand strategy example from old spice and how this brand with an old man's
reputation became the number one brand for men's body wash with just a few simple tweaks
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals and
the logo using strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit that
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now allspice was founded in 1934 by a fellow called William Schultz now they brought their
first products from to market in 1937 and their first products were actually women's products but
they followed them up a year later in 1938 with men's products and that is where they had their
outstanding success they were a staple for about 50 years or so in the men's toiletry category
until png acquired them for 300 million dollars in 1990. now allspice's original positioning is where
they got their old man brand tag now me personally I remember coming into contact with the old spice
brand through my grandad and my granddad would put his old spice on before he wheeled himself out of
the house and down to the pub on a sunday afternoon so my association with old spice
from an early age was that it was an old man's brand now at the time i was wearing links so at
around about 15 or so I started to wear deodorant then I started to wear links or axe as it's known
my poison of choice was links africa and all of my mates were doing the same we were all wearing
links or some other alternative but lynx was the go-to and this was the challenge that old spice
had none of us would ever consider old spice and we all looked at old spice as an old man's brand
and I wouldn't have even bought that for my dad because it was too old for him so that was the
challenge that old spice had they became an old man's brand and that was the perception that they
had in the market so procter and gamble knew they had a big problem the writing was on the wall and
if they didn't want the brand to go under if they really wanted to challenge in that category they
needed to change they needed to change their targeting they needed to change who they were
targeting they were targeting 40 to it seemed 90 year olds but the market that they needed to
target were the teens to 30 year olds so that's where they needed to focus their efforts but it
wasn't going to be easy to shift the perception of the old spice brand within that category because
that was the perception that they had that they were an old man's brand so this really was a big
challenge now that challenge was handed to agency Wyden and Kennedy and they met that
challenge head on they introduced the old spice swagger campaign that really started to turn heads
they used celebrities and tongue-in-cheek humor to align the brand with funny and cool which
was completely opposite to the messaging and the positioning that the brand previously had
I Brian Urlacher challenged thee to an honor duel a what an honor duel
that was me Brian Urlacher then I started using swagger from old spice who's laughing now me
now they knew they were onto something here because sales actually quadrupled from that
campaign so they doubled down on that and with a bit of research they started to realize that it
was women that actually purchased their products about 50 of the time 50 of the purchases were
attributed to women so they created a campaign to speak directly to those women 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's scented body wash and switched to old spice he could smell like he's me look down
back up where are you you're on a boat with the man your man could smell 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 possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady I'm on a horse
now the influence of the brand personality for this turnaround in perception cannot be
understated here it is that personality that tone of voice and that language that was used
that really changed those perceptions you had the jester archetype in the driver's seat
and from the website copy to the social media engagement to the ad campaigns themselves
the humor and the wit was just rife and it was coming across on all different touch points this
was the experience of the old spice brand now and that really did started to start to change those
perceptions in the marketplace that old spice was an old man's brand from this idea that old spice
was a funny and cool brand now the results from this repositioning strategy were absolutely
phenomenal wieden kennedy absolutely knocked this out of the park of course you had the
viral sensation from their ads but they also won cannes film festival awards and they were
nominated for emmys as well and on top of that when you consider that procter gamble actually
gave wyden and kennedy a target of hitting a 15 increase in sales within a year they had managed
to increase sales by over 125 percent now there's an important consideration to be made here when
reviewing this brand strategy reviewing this repositioning strategy in this campaign
they didn't invest in any product development they didn't change their product line or
introduce new products into the market this repositioning strategy was all about identifying
a new target audience and finding a new way to connect with that target audience that is it that
is what this repositioning strategy is based on there was no disruption here there was no
groundbreaking differentiation strategy it was simply about understanding who these people were
and what kind of communication they would respond to and then give them that communication
that is it so when you're considering a brand that you're building when you're considering your
positioning strategy do not underestimate the power of knowing who your audience is
and what kind of communication they're going to respond to
but when you are ready to position your brand in the market and you want to define your positioning
strategy and you want to know the different approaches that you can use then this video
will help you out until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video