POWERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR / Old Spice "Odor Blocker Body Wash"

The problem

In 2010, Old Spice launched its Odor Blocker body wash, a product that detected sweat-caused body odor and kept blocking it, promising 16 hours of odor protection. To launch it, a series of commercials starring Terry Crews was made, produced by Wieden+Kennedy Portland and directed by Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim (Tim and Eric).

The insight

This kind of thing is almost certainly down to talent. Or maybe you'd call it personality. If you can't pull it off yourself, there's no need to feel bad about it.

The idea

The defining feature of this series is how it piles on effect after effect as Crews screams while blocking his body odor: muscles bulging, his brain exploding, and a completely nonsensical explosion for a punchline. It's Tim and Eric's signature rough-cut editing and noisy sound design exploding right there on screen.

What happened

It won a Merit award at The One Show in 2011. The series continued into a sequel called "Smell is Power" in 2012. In Japan, on Niconico Douga, Crews came to be called the "soap fairy," and the ad even became material for parody videos.

Afterthought

Put Old Spice, this director duo, and Terry Crews together, and of course this is what you get—a reliably over-the-top result. I don't really have anything else to add. Sometimes it's enough to just grin and leave it at that.

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