Old Spice is an American brand of male grooming products introduced in 1937 that sells deodorants and antiperspirants, shampoos, body washes, and soaps. This advert is for their Bahamas scent antiperspirant. The advert features Isaiah Mustafa an American actor and former football wide receiver.
The advert shows a mid shot of Isaiah with his head edited to be a volcano and his body to be an island. On the island is cartoon like pictures of a man fishing, a woman sunbathing, a man buried in the sand, a man on a boat, and animals such as crabs and a monkey.
This old spice advert is self mocking in many ways. The first way it is self referential is that it acknowledges that adverts lie. This is shown in by the words “old spice Bahamas scent comes from an antiperspirant mine in the Bahamas. This fact has not been fact checked.” this adds humour to the advert as people obviously know there are no such things as ‘antiperspirant mines’
Another way this advert is self mocking is through the use of hyper masculinity through the man (Isaiah Mustafa) in the advert. His facial expression shows confidence however it is clearly in a mocking, non-serious way. This could be enforcing butler's idea of gender performativity. Butler suggests that we learn our gender and act in a way according to what we have learned. Barthes Mythical masculinity is also used in this advert as Isaiah Mustafa is a very 'typical' man in the sense that he is muscular and 'attractive'.The use of exaggerated masculinity in this advert suggests that people know what it is to be masculine and can play on it.
The advert is also post modern. This is shown through the mix and match aesthetic of a picture of Isaiah Mustafa and the cartoonish pictures. Another postmodern technique is the use of Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality through things such as the man fishing who caught a shark. This is a clear exaggeration of the truth.
This advert also links to another famous television advert by Old spice. This is because it uses the same concepts of hyper masculinity, self mocking, and exaggerating the truth.
This is a well written response Freya. You understand the intentions of the campaign, you identify post modern elements and you apply some analysis of gender. There is some micro analysis of shots and slogan, although this could be expanded a little, and you could give a little more background on the history of the brand Old Spice, and how this is represented with humour in this poster. V
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