The video: Last year, Old Spice's viral video campaign featuring the barely clad Isaiah Mustafa scored big, inspiring scores of parodies and injecting fresh life into a has-been brand. Now, the charismatic, loquacious Old Spice Guy is making a "triumphant" return. As Mustafa says in a new online video, "I'm back... to inform the people on this crazy blue marble that we call Earth how they or their man can use Old Spice to smell as fresh as the freshest smelling places on Earth." (Watch the video below.) The first of three new commercials will begin airing on television on February 7, the day after the Super Bowl.
The reaction: It will be hard to duplicate the success of the first campaign, says Eric Kallman of Wieden+Kennedy, the ad agency that created it, as quoted at MSNBC. "Inherently, there's pressure...." But Isaiah Mustafa is "the sexiest star of the commercial world" and "definitely not ready to retire," says Bonnie Fuller at Hollywood Life. I can "watch this entire [new] commercial on mute and still be happy." The campaign has been "consistently great," says Jay Hathaway at Urlesque, and I'm looking forward to seeing the "creative new ways" those "body-wash marketing geniuses" have come up with "to show off Mr. Mustafa's infuriatingly perfect body." See for yourself: