Here we have a silly and fun commercial from Old Spice, with a sea captain in what looks like an outfit made by the tailor who made the Sgt. Pepper uniforms for The Beatles, and he’s fighting a giant squid that’s biting into his shoulder, while showers of golden doubloons come pouring out of his pants pockets. Then he says he’s not actually a sea captain fighting a sea monster with gold pouring from his pockets, but the sexy woman on the couch says not to tell her nose that (!). Oh, and then they drown in a flood of gold coins as the rising tide of gold tops their heads. I guess that must be what it’s like to work for Goldline: drowning in gold all the time.
So this is really fun and everything; but the thing is, they’re selling an aromatic liquid, and then they’re saying it smells like a guy who spends all his time on a ship fighting sea monsters. Wouldn’t that guy smell bad? I mean, wouldn’t having a Humboldt squid on your shoulder for awhile make you smell like it? And I’m pretty sure they smell like slimy fish and stuff. Then there’s the idea of a sea captain on a ship for awhile: he’s not likely to be overly showered and stuff, now is he (especially if he has a sea monster adhered to his shoulder over his clothing!)?
And so this guy says he’s none of those things, but the woman says she doesn’t want to disappoint her nose, or whatever. But wouldn’t she be relieved, realistically? He’d probably smell a lot better if he wasn’t a sea captain, etc., but especially if he didn’t have a sea monster with/on him. I mean, I understand that women love gold and riches and stuff, and that perhaps this lady doesn’t want to insult or otherwise drive away the guy with the flood of gold coins spraying forth from his trousers. But seriously: we all recognize that this guy would smell terrible, right?
So I guess what I’m saying is this: Old Spice is already handicapped by the name “Old Spice” and by the sailor thing, so wouldn’t they want to say their stuff smells good? I would have thought he’d be the super-macho monster-fighter with gold treasures pouring forth from his breeches, and he’d say he is that guy, but thank goodness he doesn’t smell like it, because he’s using Old Spice! But as fun as it is, this ad makes me think their cologne, or whatever they call their smelly liquid, smells like salt, body odor, and rotten fish, because that’s what they say it smells like from what they’re showing me! And I don’t think I’m alone here in feeling this way.
Here’s a link to the ad, but you have to scroll down and click on the video called “Sea Captain”:
Or, you could just cheat and watch this one:
I’m actually talking about a shorter version of this ad, which leaves out the fake abs. That’s the one you’ll probably see more often on TV anyway.
