Dear Quirky Commercials Geared Towards Men

 

Old Spice, you did a valiant job.  You were doing  well with your Bruce Campbell commercials. Sure, they made very little sense, but that was the point.  You found someone that men ages 25-40 idolized and used him to shill your product.  You could have appealed to our sense of nostalgia by reminding us that you were the scent of our fathers and grandfathers, but you decided to appeal to our generation's unique sense of the absurd.  It was a good plan, and I bet it even worked. 

Quickly though, you switched tactics.  You appealed to the women in our lives, because I guess you decided that women are the ones that are doing the shopping, somewhere between their crying fits and reruns of General Hospital.  So you replaced the venerable Mr. Campbell with Old Spice Guy.

Ok, so still absurd.  Actually, maybe more so.  But it really did work.  The world went nuts for this, to the point where you had days where this guy took live requests to say things standing in a shower.  You are marketing geniuses!

Know who else is a marketing genius?  The guys from Dairy Queen!  Why?  Because they completely ripped you the hell off!

I mean, really?!?  It's like you just threw both of those previous commercials in a blender with some Reeses Pieces and sweet chewy gummy bears.  It is the same exact thing! I can almost see the desperate meeting where you middle aged hacks gave in and just started changing the competitor's commercial because you simply had no idea how you could ever connect with your target audience.  No amount of rapping dogs or hip grandmoms has worked, so please god, let this get through to them. 

At least no one else can think that they can pull off this type of thing and it won't get noticed.

Son of a bitch.  I feel like you think I am too stupid to even care at this point.  The joke's on you.  I am more apathetic than anything, but I am not too lazy to hunt and peck out this angry letter.

Everyone is doing the same thing.  I would say that Old Spice needs to sue, except that I know that Old Spice is a dirty thief too.

EXHIBITS A AND B

These commercials were way better than your stupid commercials.  And they came out first. 

Captain Morgan's Gold- 2002
Vault- 2006
Bruce Campbell Old Spice Ad- 2007
Old Spice Guy- 2008
Dairy Queen- 2011
Dollar Shave Club- 2012

Captain Morgan's Gold was an awful amalgamation of battery acid and demon's blood, but that commercial single handedly helped me graduate college.  The Vault commercial should have gotten an Oscar for greatest narration done by someone other than Morgan Freeman or the guy who played Booger in Revenge of the Nerds.

Both of these set the precedent for this rash of new commercials, with the inspirational music, forceful narration, background chanting, and the sheer joy of making it ok to be weird, manly, and weirdly manly.  Yet, somehow, these products didn't last, and few remember their glory, so you new ad execs are robbing their graves.

If I didn't find the boldness of your treachery somewhat inspiring, I would sick the replica of the Vault robot I made to kill the mockingbird on my roof after you.  I won't be that easy on you.  I happen to know that when Bruce Campbell realizes what you've made him a party to, you'll wish a robot would kill you with mortars.