When someone says “Old Spice advertisement”, what’s the first thing that you think of? Does it look like something similar to this guy?

Of course, you may have also noticed that in recent months, Isaiah Mustafa (better known as the “Old Spice Guy”) has ceased to appear in the daily ads for the company.

So what is Old Spice doing to keep up with its commercials that target the typical low-to-middle income North American man wanting to feel masculine, fresh, and attractive — and still with that prevalence of comedic exaggeration?

See for yourself:

David Griner, frequent blogger on advertising news website “Adweek”, features this “fascinatingly bizarre” ad and goes on to state that Old Spice has mastered this art of illogical, often surreal theme in their advertising. The most interesting comment that Griner makes, in my opinion, is that despite all the strangeness and humour, the ad does not alleviate attention from the product itself.

I had a brief discussion about this commercial with a friend of mine, and she claimed that the ad was too “out there”, uncomfortable, and she couldn’t see how — in terms of the AIDA Model — it could possibly help to link the “interest” with the “desire” and/or “action” of a viewer. I had to completely disagree with her and pick David Griner’s side. In fact, I think with its farce-like advertisements, Old Spice automatically sparks desire and subsequent action towards its products. The company uses pure entertainment as a way of penetrating through all the noise in the advertising world and drawing the attention of the Generation Y men it targets, who are known to be impatient and very sceptical towards brands. With this emotional appeal, it not only instill its brand name, but a positive image linked to it, in the minds of the men who frequent drug stores in search of the next soap bar that will give them a fresh, alluring scent.

Old Spice is doing it right — both with the old and new way.