we're confused by the men your man could smell like
Everyone has been talking about the brilliant Wieden + Kennedy Old Spice ads, but we must point out the fatal flaw: It's damned complicated to actually buy the product. You see, Old Spice has failed to minimize the burden of choice. When we were kids, Old Spice had one scent, a naval-minty-seaside thing that our dad wore, and it was a known entity like vanilla or chocolate or clover in spring, a fond memory evoking the scent of the leather band on grandpa's wristwatch. Now, your supermarket carries Old Spice Aqua Reef and Red Zone and High Endurance Pure Sport, and perhaps a Classic in there somewhere. We dig the spots, the YouTube Twitter responses, the humor, the manly Isaiah, yes we do. And yes we get the concept of shelf space.
But that burden of choice -- you know, making the purchase decision more complex than it has to be -- is always a mistake. Sorry, Old Spice, we didn't pick one up; smelling like your man was way too complicated.
Labels: old spice, package design
posted by Ben Kunz @ 8:06 AM
19 comments
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I think that the problem with Old Spice is that they haven't modernised their packaging in line with their other modern campaigns - they're clinging to their brand colours and uniformed packaging too much.
For example:
Want to smell like a lumberjack?
Chop down a tree with a homemade ax then wash clean with Old Spice Pine Scent.
But yeah, some kind of "As Seen on YouTube" label would be very helpful.
Vincent, you NAILED the solution. Put up a POS display that evokes the popular spot, with an Isaiah guide to which brand to buy. Wish W+K would get on that. I'm confused and smelly.
I customize my home pages on my main sites. I customize everything I care about on the web.
I customize my ring tones.
I customize the main menu of my iPhone.
And you complain when a consumer products company offers me choice?
The reason you personalize your home pages and ring tones is because you are filtering out unwanted options, to give yourself simpler choices that reflect what you really want. You are minimizing your own burden of choice.
See: GM's recent shrinking of auto brands, and the constant challenge Ford has explaining a Mercury is something more than a Ford with more chrome. Detroit is a classic example of product choice clutter and what happens when consumers begin to yawn in the face of option plenty.
I agree, choice can be good, but there is a disconnect between the W+K spots positioning Old Spice as "the (one) man" you could smell like and a shelf full of (many) red plastic options with small type and nuanced differences. "Minimizing the burden of choice" means giving consumers a simple path to move ahead -- it is a balance.
Thanks again, mate.
Keep your shiny red...almost all the same. But in the top left corner was a product icon and the top right corner was a scent icon.
Then you could go to the Old Spoce site and have a little interactive app where you enter answers to some (could be silly) questions and Isiah spits out a few suggestions to "Smell like the man you should smell like".
Boom.
Plenty of brands share this issue, but it’s notable with Old Spice at the moment, because the advertising’s message is so brilliantly basic.
More at www.jkr.co.uk/design-gazette/ if you’re interested...
That sounds like a marketing person trying to justify his/her existence.
So long as the main brand is strong, the fact that there are subtleties within that brand don't matter. Indeed, such availability of choices may make the brand even stronger by allowing small differences in choice whilst remaining within the brand.
Look at the Axe brand. The main brand (Axe) is very strong, yet the multitude of choice within that strong brand doesn't confuse. The choice encourages experimentation within the main brand, and discourages a consumer from leaving to try another brand or brands.