Super Bowl commercials: Old Spice gets into gorilla marketing

Old Spice is a company known for having some silly commercials, and for this year’s Super Bowl, it’s no exception. They’re sending you into the thick of the jungle with a guy who is very much interested in smelling good — though he may be somewhat of an idiot otherwise based on how he insults one of the gorillas that he finds. This a commercial about bonding, about storming through the jungle, and seemingly about not having body odor.

Really, this is a commercial that is all over the place.

What worked – Really good scenery, and the CGI work on the gorillas is really good. This is an ad that does utilize its brand pretty well given that if you’re tearing through the jungle with no shirt on, the odds are fairly high that you’re going to develop some serious body odor and probably need a product like this to help carry you through.

What didn’t – The entire execution of the ad is confusing from start to finish, and we’re not just saying that because the gorilla is in the audience for the lecture at the end. It’s not entirely clear what the relationship between the man and the apes is meant to be, or whether or not this adventurer is some sort of idiot savant with no bedside manner. Also, why do the gorillas care what he smells like? They’re gorillas! There are several things here that just don’t make a great degree of sense.

Overall – This is an ad that may work best if you don’t actually think about it and you just look at some of the images in it and then move on. It’s reasonable effective for advertising Old Spice, but when you think about some of their other great commercials over the years with the Old Spice Men, this pales in comparison. They could have went smaller and delivered something that was equally effective, if not more so. Grade: C+.

What did you think of the ad? Share now in the comments, and head over here to get some other commercials from the big game! (Photo: Old Spice.)