HELSINQI CREATIVE

Where have I seen Old Spice Guy before?

Monday, 19 July 2010

What's so universally appealing about the (allegedly already retired) Old Spice Guy and his ads is the lack of snark. The ads' irony is completely inclusive. They poke fun but not at anyone, certainly not anyone's expense. It should remind an increasingly cutting culture that, hey, schadenfreude is not a necessary ingredient of comedy.

And the Guy, portrayed by Isaiah Mustafa, is just so damn likeable. So where have I seen him before?

That feeling of familiarity stretches back a full century — indulge me — to the early aughts and teens when J.C. Leyendecker illustrated the Arrow Collar Man. In his book Adland (Kogan Page, 2007), Mark Tungate writes of Leyendecker's creation:

“The men he painted actually generated fan mail. They were tall, rakish, impeccably dressed and yet forever nonchalant, their cheekbones gleaming above pristine shirt collars. To use a phrase that had not yet become hackneyed, men wanted to be them and women wanted to be with them.”

Love that “actually generated fan mail.” If they'd had Twitter and YouTube back in the day, Arrow Collar Man would have been on the same shtick Old Spice Guy's been on, no doubt. But then, the adjective viral wasn't even in use until 1948.