After reading Heidi Hargreaves’ post on “Humor and the Beer Industry”, it got me thinking to how important this trait is in the world nowadays. For me personally, the commercials and marketing campaigns that stay in my mind the longest are the funny ones. I’m always telling my friends or relatives about this really funny commercial I saw that they just have to see, and pass it on. One of my favorites, is the recent Expedia.ca commercial in which the same actor is used for every character in the commercial. Another very successful campaign that revolves around humor is the Old Spice campaign featuring the “Old Spice guy” Isaiah Mustafa.

This campaign has continued for quite some time, even bringing in a copyright concern with Dairy Queen trying to mimic the Old Spice strategy, using their own guy with the same sort of style. What intrigues me most about this ad campaign is Proctor & Gambles use of innovation to break into a market that previously wanted nothing to do with its products. Old Spice was generally known as a “old man” brand and did not appeal to younger consumers. What Old Spice managed to do was look at its options and the markets it had yet to break in to. Using humor, wit and a unique twist P&G was able to smash into the younger market, causing both young males and females to talk about their hilarious commercials. One of the most effective strategies used by P&G was to direct these commercials at women as well, by indicating their Old Spice guy was “the man your man could smell like”. This campaign has played a significant role in allowing Old Spice to crash its way into the younger market, proving the effectiveness of humor in commericals.