Old Spice’s strange viral ad campaign, “Momsong,” with mothers weirdly stalking their sons and singing about leaving the nest, appears to have given the brand a bigger perception boost with mothers than the apparent target audience of men 18 - 34.
Consumer perception of Old Spice by mothers jumped 58% over the past three and a half weeks, while comparatively, men 18 – 34 remained essentially flat, drifting down 9%. Ironically, both mothers and millennial men arrived at roughly the same levels of perception by the end of January.
It wasn’t as if millennial men were not aware of Old Spice’s irreverent campaign: it seems they were far more aware of it than their mothers. The percentage of millennial men aware of Old Spice advertising rose through January from 25% to 47%, compared to a smaller increase for moms, who went from 15% to 17%.
Perhaps that it is why Old Spice has just launched a new completely different, yet still twisted, campaign devoted to men’s hair care with no mothers in sight.
Old Spice was measured with two of YouGov BrandIndex’s scores: Buzz ("If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?"), and Ad Awareness ("Which of the following brands have you seen in an advertisement over the last two weeks?"). Research was divided into two demographics: women with children under 18 years old, and men age 18 to 34.
YouGov BrandIndex’s Buzz score range is from 100 to -100 and compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.
The Ad Awareness score range is from 0% to 100%.
Old Spice’s Buzz score with mothers jumped from 12 to19 since the beginning of the year, while Buzz among men 18 – 34 went down from 21 to 19.
Buzz: Old Spice - Moms (children under 18), Men 18-34
Ad Awareness: Old Spice - Moms (children under 18), Men 18-34
