Old spice aqua reef body wash target

prepared by Professor Derek D. Rucker and Mauricio O’Connell ’08. All facts and images presented in this case were obtained through communications with a representative from Procter & Gamble on the Old Spice team. Cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 800-545-7685(or 617-783-7600 outside the United States or Canada) or e-mail custserv@hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Kellogg Case Publishing.

DEREK D. RUCKER AND MAURICIO O’CONNELL ’08 KEL786

Old Spice: Repeating Success in the Face of Competitive Threat

Planning season for fiscal year 2009–2010 had come for the members of the Old Spice brand team, and they knew another great campaign was needed to drive the growth of their beloved brand. The team had demonstrated the power of advertising after saving the Glacial Falls line in the previous fiscal year by repositioning the scent as Swagger and speaking to the consumers’ desire for confidence. The revitalized campaign was successful not only because it moved the scent from the worst-performing to one of the top three in the portfolio but also because the advertising created a “halo effect”1 for the rest of the portfolio, resulting in growth for the entire Old Spice brand.

The Swagger campaign had also been honored with external awards for both its creativity (2009 Silver Cyber Cannes Award) and its effectiveness (2010 Silver Effie Award). The Old Spice brand had always been seen as a bit of a rebellious child within the Procter & Gamble (P&G) portfolio, with less conventional advertising motifs and buying media through agency as opposed to utilizing P&G’s bulk buys. P&G allowed the brand to behave differently because Old Spice constituted only about 1 percent of P&G’s $85 billion portfolio. With its success, however, the rebellious child had begun to catch the attention of other brands within P&G. In just a few years, the Old Spice repositioning of Glacial Falls had become the model within the company for a successful turnaround. Old Spice also served as a strong reminder that a great advertising strategy could have powerful effects on sales without any sensory change in the product experience.

Following their recent success, the Old Spice team members had set a high bar for themselves; they wanted to challenge themselves to do something bigger and to prove they had not simply stumbled onto the Swagger success. They wanted to be seen not as one-hit wonders but as members of a group that had a knack for creating sound strategy that one of their key creative partners, the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, could then execute. Wieden+Kennedy had built great brands such as Nike and Coca-Cola, and now could count Old Spice as another success story.

1 A halo effect in advertising refers to the growth of a non-advertised product that results from its affiliation with an advertised product. Halo effects occur when a positive reaction to an advertisement increases consumers’ awareness of, or their general attitude toward, other affiliated products, leading them to buy products not advertised. For example, although Swagger was the specific scent advertised in 2008–2009, other Old Spice scents not advertised (e.g., After Hours, Showtime, Aqua Reef) also saw growth attributed to Swagger’s advertising.

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This document is authorized for use only by Miranda Reilly in Advertising Strategy-Fall 2017-1 taught by David Basch, HE OTHER from August 2017 to December 2017.

OLD SPICE: REPEATING SUCCESS KEL786

2 KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

The core Old Spice brand team comprised brand manager James Moorhead and his four assistant brand managers: George Felix, Jim Urbaitis, Shanan Sabin, and Mauricio O’Connell. For O’Connell, a recent graduate of the Kellogg School of Management, his first few years as an assistant brand manager had been an unbelievable ride. He had worked on the Swagger launch and was proud to claim part of the responsibility for its success. O’Connell also shared the enthusiasm of his brand team to do something bigger and better. He knew that as a brand manager he could not afford to rest on his laurels; to be successful he would have to best his previous results. Swagger had been so successful, however, that the next campaign would have no easy hurdle to clear. Expectations were high for the Old Spice team, which already had begun to work together to figure out the next “Big Idea.” The following were the options the team was considering.

Continue to Promote Swagger

Previously the Old Spice team had put the entire force of its advertising budget behind Swagger. At the time, others in P&G thought the strategy risky, as the team had provided no advertising support for the overall Old Spice name in a more than a year. The gamble ended up paying off, as sales numbers had attested to the growth of Swagger: sales were up 175 percent and volume was up 270 percent. And, despite not supporting the broader brand, sales of other Old Spice products had continued to grow steadily. These outcomes suggested that an opportunity existed to continue to grow and secure Swagger’s place in consumers’ hearts and minds.

Indeed, the Old Spice team thought it would be a shame if Swagger’s growth stalled because of the potentially unnecessary and premature pulling of advertising to support the broader brand. Thus, one option being considered by the brand team was to continue to fuel the behemoth that the Swagger scent had become. However, Wieden+Kennedy was already ready to move onto a new project and to do something different with the brand. Wieden+Kennedy had already developed three different communication messages for the Swagger scent: Urlacher and LL Cool J, Tony Stewart, and Swaggerize Your Wallet. The issue was whether an extended campaign for Swagger could be launched to keep the new flagship scent ahead of the competition or whether the campaign had reached its zenith and a switch in strategy was required.