"Curls Are Cool"

3 February 2022

45s

Curls just wanna have fun.

Old Spice is a brand with an amazing advertising history. A highly effective but much ridiculed campaign which ran in the 1970s and 1980s featured a man surfing on a giant wave while a young woman played with her hair enticingly as Carl Orff's Carmina Buruna energetically rose above the fray. Understated it was not... but it doubtless led to a lot of men reeking of the stuff by Boxing Day, even though it was naff as hell.

The enduring sense that Old Spice lacked credibility as a brand was fixed in one fell swoop in 2010 by The Man Your Man Could Smell Like - a sublime piece of advertising created by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland. It proved to be the foundation of an immensely fruitful relationship between agency and client and, as you can tell from this latest offering, it's a union which continues to yield dividends.

Prettybird director Yousef has deployed his armoury of VFX skills to great effect in a celebration of curly hair which launches the brand's move into haircare. The resulting film is fun, funny and fizzing with energy.

With advertising like this, Old Spice shampoos and conditioners are bound to be a success, and the existence of these new products and this fantastic commercial offer a perfect illustration of where a productive relationship between agency and client can lead.