In business connecting with your customer and representing the right values do count for your sales. In this day market you lose customers if they don’t feel connected with your brand. In case of fast consumer moving goods, customers are most of the time not conscious shopping. This may change when they stumble upon something that touches their core believes.
From the first moment, I saw the Old Spice commercial, I was thrilled. Wow! It was tempting, entertaining, vibrant. I would like to see such entertaining commercials in Holland. Please, throw away the boring women stuff commercials. They make me numb and stay away from the product.
The Old Spice commercial indeed evoked me searching for retail outlets in Holland. I was determined to buy an Old Spice gift for a friend’s birthday.
When I heard that the Old Spice guy would be on Oprah, I made sure Iwouldn’t miss that episode. There he was, the Old Spice guy standing in his bathroom. Smiling, happy, confident. With only a towel wrapped around the lower part of his body, he was talking over the internet with media mogul Oprah.
Yeah, I liked him until my eye catched something. Within 60 seconds, my enthusiasm faded. Was this for real? The Old Spice guy had a buddha sculpture sitting on the tank of his toilet. Are you kidding me? Did he really put a buddha sculpture at his toilet’s tank, so buddha can look at his ass and shit?
No, the Old Spice guy wasn’t so appealing anymore.
It’s a fact, religious pictures and sculptures are being sold as commodity in the west. People tend to see it like a souvenir they can put it where ever they like to.
Couldn’t the Old Spice guy find a proper place for the buddha, like his living room? Was the tank of his toilet the only place he could think of?
This may seem nothing to you, but for a lot of people (in fact billions), the holy hinduism and buddhism sculptures and pictures have a deeper meaning. We choose carefully where we put them and how we treat them. They represent core values of our believes.
Do you put a bible as general reading item in your bathroom? Imagine this, would Obama win the elections if photos were sent to the media of a bible flinging about in his bathroom as a commodity? Just waiting there to be read during his next bathroom break. I don’t think so.
Well, let’s hope the Old Spice company and the guy they hired won’t be selling Old Spicy in the billions business China, Singapore, India and Japan represent. I think millions of people would be offended and discard Old Spice.
Anything that conflicts with my core personal values won’t end up on my shopping list. I gave my friend something else.
