New Old Spice campaign results in a decent proposal

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On Tuesday I received a thank you from Isaiah Mustafa -- the towel-clad Adonis of the Old Spice ‘manmercials’ -- for mentioning him and his Emmy-nominated Old Spice commercial in a recent All The Rage post. But it wasn’t just an e-mailed note, it was a video clip of the actor, towel and all, giving a shout-out not just to me personally, but a congratulations to the people of our fair city for a host of things including our proximity to many major theme parks and ‘that tallest building downtown that’s round at the top -- the one that’s always getting blown up in alien movies.’

At first, the folks in the All The Rage cubicle farm were convinced it was some sort of Photoshop situation with the actor’s voice-over, or a gimmick like Burger King’s ‘Subservient Chicken’ online ad campaign, but a call to local PR reps for Old Spice confirmed that the Man on the Horse did indeed don his towel for the occasion.

And I was far from the only one to get a musing from Mustafa; it turns out the actor is currently in the studio in Portland, Ore., with the Wieden+Kennedy folks (who created the original, award-winning spot) taping a bunch of these short, personalized clips -- most of them in response to Twitter posts or comments left at the Old Spice YouTube channel.

While I certainly enjoyed hearing Mustafa mutter my name, my favorite video so far is the marriage proposal issued on behalf of Twitter user @jsbeals, complete with candles and a ring. I’m checking to confirm all the details, but based on subsequent postings to his Twitter account, it looks like she answered in the affirmative.

As an advertising campaign that engages the consumer, it’s genius, and my guess is we’ll see a lot more of these narrowcast video conversations from all kinds of brands in the future.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a burning question, comment -- or proposal -- I’m told that Mustafa and company will be churning out these video responses through Wednesday afternoon.

-- Adam Tschorn

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