I want a boyfriend. But not for the usual reasons of wanting a boyfriend—I actually enjoy being single. I’d like a boyfriend for just a minute, just long enough to do my small part in supporting the best advertising campaign in circulation right now; I want to buy my momentary boyfriend a big bottle of Old Spice Body Wash.
Perhaps you’ve seen the strapping man Isaiah Mustafa, former NFL wide receiver and now Old Spice Guy, in the shower, on a boat, on a horse, telling men in his suave voice to stop using “ladies’ scented body wash” and to “smell like a man, man.” This world-beating campaign is a delight of dry humor and originality; the spokesman embodies the brand identity, is appealing across multiple demographics, and is decidedly unannoying—if brand metrics are to be believed. According to Warc.com quoting Nielson data, sales of Old Spice Body Wash are up 55 percent this summer, thanks to that viral campaign. And on YouTube, the Old Spice Guy’s original spot has had over eighteen million views in the last six months. Those aren’t Justin Bieber numbers, but for a commercial, they’re impressive, to say the least.
Not all spokespeople are so magnetic, however. There are plenty of corporate shills of the human, anthropomorphic, or animated variety that could really stand to remove themselves from the pop-culture fray and go their merry way into obscurity. Here are a few such individuals.
Rachael Ray for Dunkin’ Donuts
It was either a stroke of mad genius or a bona fide brain fart that inspired the Dunkin’ Donuts marketing department to turn to one of the most ubiquitous and obnoxious personalities in America to be a spokeswoman for the corporation. If you so much as glance at a television between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., chances are, you’ll catch Ms. Ray cooking something, eating something, sharing one of her dull recipes, or, since June 2008, sharing her enthusiasm for the delectable coffees and snacks of your nearest Dunkin’ Donuts. As if we weren’t already seeing enough of her.
The GEICO Gecko
GEICO’s advertising is a confusion of spokesthings: the Caveman, the stack of money with googly eyes, and the debonair gecko. You could have a fairly long debate about which is the most effective advertising trope and which is the most likely to be kicked if encountered on the street. My money’s on the gecko. His beginnings are interesting enough: he was employed in 1999, while the Screen Actors Guild was on strike. Human actors couldn’t be used, so GEICO resorted to animating and anthropomorphizing a day gecko and, voilà, advertising history was made. Eleven years later, we’re all wondering when the Gecko Actors Guild will go on strike.
