"Chronic body odor ruins lives." - Neil Patrick Harris

My favorite ad campaign in the whole world is that of Old Spice. It is entrancing and I don’t mind being taken along for the ride of hilariousness. They put out a quality product and their 21^st century marketing campaign appeals to guys without appealing to their sexual desires (at least not in a very explicit way). Now that I’m done giving Old Spice free peer pressure advertising (that was last week, Ethan)… I talked about Old Spice for the first blog post for its “hopeful” quality, and now I’m going to use it again for its use of celebrity.

 

            Actors Isaiah Mustafa, Terry Crews, Will Ferrell (as Jackie Moon from Semi-Pro), Bruce Campbell, LL Cool J, Neil Patrick Harris, football players Greg Jennings, Ray Lewis, Brain Urlacher, and racecar driver Tony Stewart have all done spots for Old Spice. Look at your keyboard. Now back to this post. Now at your left thumb nail. Now BACK to this post. The text is now COLORFUL! Sorry, couldn’t pass that up. But why would Old Spice feel the need to use such manly man-celebrities in their commercials? The answer is obvious. It’s put plainly in any given celebrity ad for Old Spice Swagger. After watching a clip featuring a nerdy looking teen guy embarrassing himself, it pans out to the celebrity we’re familiar with, for example, Brain Urlacher. He says “That used to be me. But then I started using Old Spice Swagger. Who’s laughing now? Haha, ME.” The message is plain: use Old Spice and you will no longer be like nerdy, unpopular Brain Urlacher, but like muscular, celebrity Brain Urlacher. This concept can tie into peer pressure, but as the reading told us, coming from a celebrity, the pressure is multiplied, especially coming from manly men.

As all men know, a large part of being human is wanting to impress your fellow mankind. We as men want women to want us and we want men to want to be us. When we don’t feel like our dashing good looks, charming demeanors and go-to classy jokes are enough to impress, we remember the Old Spice ad. “Neil Patrick Harris uses Old Spice? It’s hard to get classier than that. Perhaps there’s a flavor that suits me. And when I find it, I’ll have the confidence I need to impress men and ladyfolk alike!” I can’t say I feel this extreme about my use of Old Spice, but I definitely am more confident in public when I know I’m covered by my reliably long-lasting stick of Old Spice, and this brand gives me the added bonus of joining the ranks of the actors, football players and racecar driver mentioned above.

As I said in my last Old Spice posting though, the Bible has a different view on what it means to be a man. 2 Peter 1:3-4 says “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” All that is important to life with Christ is living a godly life, walking with Christ through our everyday. This passage tells us that we have already been given all we need to accomplish that end through God’s divine power. We don’t need that extra boost of confidence from Old Spice in order for Christ to shine through us to those around us. We have been freed from evil desires like impressing our fellow man-kind for the sake of our own pride. Christ is the only celebrity whose name we should value. Even when we face pressures from our world telling us what will make us better, more desirable, etc, we can always retreat to the love of Christ that tells us we are good enough.