Old Spice salutes 'Godzilla' to promote Walmart exclusives

Dive Brief:

Procter & Gamble grooming brand Old Spice released a five-minute video that pays homage to early "Godzilla" movies. Titled "What Old Spice Didn't Want You to See" and created with the Wieden + Kennedy agency, it depicts YouTube star DangMattSmith running from two "monsters," according to materials shared with Marketing Dive.
The video is part of the launch of two new scents for the brand's Wild Collection of antiperspirants and body washes. The two new products, which Old Spice says offer "monstrous sweat protection," are called Dragonblast and Yetifrost. In the video, DangMattSmith lets the chained dragon and yeti — shown as two actors wearing purposefully amateurish costumes — smell their namesake scents, but they break free, grow larger and fight each other in a cityscape full of obvious miniatures.
The new scents are available exclusively at Walmart, a single-retailer release that follows the Amazon-exclusive launch of Old Spice's first beard care collection.

Dive Insight:

This isn't the first time Old Spice has centered a campaign around video or around the kind of outrageous marketing that often spurs social conversation, dating back to the brand's "Old Spice Man" ads that began in 2010. The brand seems intent on playing around with the traditional methods of marketing men's grooming products in an effort to capture the attention of millennial and Gen Z men who are likely more tuned in to the offbeat humor of online videos. Parent company Procter & Gamble is broadly focused on revamping the digital media supply chain, in part by through exclusive partnerships like with this one with Walmart, that enable it to have more control over where content appears and the data it can glean from such efforts.

By enlisting DangMattSmith — a YouTube personality with more than 8 million followers on the platform — Old Spice has teamed with an influencer with a sizable built-in audience. The video is also well-timed, as Warner Bros. will release "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" on May 31, and it could piggyback off interest of and searches for the potential summer blockbuster.

The video campaign is also significant as it supports Walmart exclusive products, rather than the Amazon-only products that the brand released in 2018. The battle between Amazon and Walmart has found a new front in digital advertising. Walmart plans to leverage advertising data and its growing stable of original and library content, along with new products like shoppable in-stream ads, on its Vudu platform. The retail giant also recently pitched advertisers — including P&G — for the first time on its burgeoning ad business.

Old Spice's new beastly campaign is the latest in a long line of its streaming video efforts. Last year, the brand promoted a foaming body wash by streaming on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook Live a two-day, football-themed obstacle course, where two dozen competitors overcame obstacles in the "Lost City of Football" to win the Foam Zone Trophy. Previously, it promoted its Old Spice Holiday packs with an hour-long video that largely consisted of a Yule log burning in a fireplace, with pitchman Terry Crews occasionally appearing in the fireplace before the whole scene repeatedly exploded.

The brand has also mixed marketing channels to reinforce its messages. A 2018 Old Spice print ad in GQ magazine featured an adult-sized paper blazer that was scented with the brand's new line of fragrances for men. To add an additional layer of "Monty Python"-esque mystique, Old Spice also promoted the fragrances by airing a 60-second spot during the Grammy Awards — entirely in French, with no subtitles.