Will Gillingham

Old Spice – Pomade Radio

The “Old Spice – Pomade Radio” is an ad campaign that featured in 2019 and won Best of Show Radio Campaign from the Radio Mercury Awards.

There were multiple versions of the ad, but each featured the same jingle to promote Old Spice hair pomade. The ads began with a fictional “listener” calling into an equally fictional radio station, and requesting that the station anchor play “that new song ‘Pomade’ by Old Spice.” At the end of a couple of old-timey verses, the iconic Old Spice whistle melody plays, and the listener hears a narrator’s voice informing them that the pomade is available at CVS Pharmacy.

The ‘Pomade’ song by Old Spice, which the fictional listeners are calling in to request, mentions product use. “You put it in your hair, not your armpit hair, but your head of hair. Your gorgeous head of hair, pomade.” The emotional appeal the ad uses is humor. Clarifying that a user should use it on their head hair, not their armpit hair, is entertaining and a bit of light humor. The objectives of this campaign were to sell more product and to inform customers about a new Old Spice product. Old Spice offers a range of personal care and hygiene products, including deodorants, body washes, shaving creams, and hair gels. If a pomade wasn’t available before 2019, when the ad aired, this campaign could serve to introduce a new hair care product.

The target market for this ad is male, likely aged 18 to 40. I hypothesize it may be focused more on a younger demographic, as other Old Spice advertisements I’ve seen seem to cater to a younger audience. Certain words and patterns in the advertisement suggest it is aimed at younger male consumers. One pattern, for example, is that two of the three ad variations feature a man calling into the fictional radio station to request the song be played. The other ad variation features a woman calling to request that the Pomade song be played in honor of her boyfriend, “Who has a great head of hair.” The Pomade song in the ad also mentions armpit hair, which traditionally is a male trait (women often shave their armpits). Lastly, the Pomade song also uses the adjective “handsome” to describe users of the pomade product, a word typically associated with men.

The action the ad wants the audience to take is to visit their local CVS Pharmacy and find the product. If the action is taken, the audience member will benefit from using the product because they will have a product that might help them achieve a “gorgeous” or “handsome” head of hair.

Old Spice is a well-known, household brand. I think the specific reasons that would drive customers to purchase the product advertised are dependent on a consumer’s past exposure to the brand. The target market may have used an alternative Old Spice product and had a positive experience or impression of Old Spice’s quality, scent, lifestyle, or values, and may be more loyal to the brand. There isn’t anything in this radio ad that emphasizes the product’s differences, uniqueness, or quality. Therefore, in piecing together this ad, I think Old Spice anticipates having sufficient market penetration and that consumers are well aware of the product quality they can expect from purchasing the pomade.