VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Not Your Father’s Old Spice Commercials

Remember when Old Spice was cool? Somewhere along the road, the brand image sputtered and when I was in high school, everyone thought that whoever wore Old Spice was just an old gramps. Now, the marketing department at Old Spice is striving to make it young, hip and relevant again. With the surge in popularity in men’s body washes and other grooming products, it was time to dust off an old and familiar name and save it from the lower racks of the bargain bin.

While Old Spice tried commercials featuring sports activities and locker room antics, they didn’t hit gold until the Isaiah Mustafa was hired as the Old Spice man. The droll and hilariously larger than life and unquestionably manly, the Old Spice Man was featured in several popular commercials, urging men to drop the “lady scented” body washes.

The Old Spice Man is currently interacting with Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit users by creating video responses to their questions. Here, he answers a question about what happens when two men wearing Old Spice meet.

For more entertainment, visit the Old Spice Youtube channel

Morgan Freeman’s Early Roles: He Kept It Clean

There are so many slogans for products these days that tout their greenness and wonderfulness, I almost long to be told how awful something is…so awful that I just may want to try it.  Before all of those freshmint and cinnamon flavors for the “kid in you,” Listerine was an antiseptic tasting substance that made you wonder why you gargled with it in the first place.  The marketing geniuses decided to capitalize on it and tag it with the slogan, “It’s got the taste people hate…twice a day!”

Academy Award winning actor and narrator extraordinaire Morgan Freeman stars in this spot for Listerine, long even before the days of playing a bathing Vampire on “The Electric Company.”   Yes. You read that right.

Of course, you have probably completely ignored that last bit and wonder what’s the deal with a bathing Vampire?  Apparently, vampires enjoy bathing in their caskets due to heat retention. It is much warmer in there than running across the hall and properly bathing in the bathroom. Besides, there are too many lights in there.

Surely, this influenced Freeman’s decision to join the cast of the film Clean and Sober. He probably felt it was a bait and switch, as the film was not about “that” kind of clean. Luckily for all of us, Mr. Freeman started choosing roles regardless of level of personal hygiene products and has played a variety of entertaining and career defining roles.

What is your favorite “Before They were Famous” moments?

Christmas Means Norelco!

I remember my brother and I staying home with a babysitter while mom and dad went Christmas shopping. We had a really cool babysitter named Renee. We would play games and record radio shows on our tape players. We played “Truth or Dare” and one of the silly dares was to walk outside in the snow without any coat on and yell, “I LOVE NORELCO!” for all to hear. Why? Maybe we heard that slogan on a commercial. We thought it was a funny thing to say, at least when you were five and eight years old.

I remember the Norelco Santa commercials, but had no idea they kept remaking it over the years. For your enjoyment, here is three decades of Santa

Norelco Santa from the 1960s. The commercial was stop motion claymation, produced in the CBS studios.

Here is Santa, as he appeared in 1978.

Here comes Santa Claus….1994 style.

There is one more Santa that I think I remember. He had a pointy hat and looked like he was made of gumdrop material, but perhaps that was for another product.  If anyone finds that one, point me in that direction.  Have you or a loved one ever went on a razor spending spree for the holidays?

Merry Christmas from all of us at VintageGent’s Menswear Daily.

1974: How to Turn Her On!

Step One: Take her out and treat her like a la-dy…

No, that’s the wrong year and that song is kind of stupid.

In 1974, Clairol knew that the way to “turn her on.” or more properly, connect her to a large supply of electricity that prevented her from going near water, or otherwise there would be an accident. You buy her a Clairol 3 Way Mist Hairsetter, an Air Brush, or a Crazy Curl! And remember those mirrors that made everyone look like they were sitting in front of a bug light and made everyone look orange? Yeah, that’s the way to a woman’s heart.

Take that, 1984 and your jelly bracelets or 2009 and your ipod!  This Christmas, ladies know what they REALLY want.

It Smells Like…The 70s!

I was having a conversation this week about cologne. Some of the descriptions of this Scent or that sometimes makes us laugh. Some colognes proudly tout that they smell “like saddle leather.” One in particular was the main source of conversation. That was Brut cologne. While we pondered the different high and low notes of various male and female scents (of course today, there are also unisex scents but that is another topic), we decided exactly what Brut smells like.

“Brut smells like the 70s.”
“The 70s…you mean the DECADE? Or do you mean the age.”
“Oh, the decade for sure. As far as the age…I don’t know. I know if you are in your 80s, the scent is probably brill cream.”
“Ok…”
“Tell me that when you smell Brut, you don’t automatically think of the colors brown and rust, and creepy moustaches. Close your eyes and see what happens…”

Well, Brut is still around and hasn’t changed.  If it has, then it is something that the casual nose can’t pick up.  It once was the darling of scent counters, and now it is at every pharmacy and dollar store in America.  I wonder: Does a new generation wear Brut, or are all the people buying Brut people that were preteens and teenagers in the height of the 1970s?  Or do you think there are truly people “discovering” the somewhat musky smell?

That is a question to be pondered….

I guess it is best that an era smells like something recognizable.  I am still trying to find out what “teen spirit” smells like.  Not “Teen Spirit” the deodorant, but the Nirvana version that is probably the LACK of wearing Teen Spirit.  Sweat Flannel.  Jolt soda.  I should know what it smells like because I am more of that decade as far as chronological age goes.  I can just imagine sitting in my rocker with a grandchild on my knee reminiscing that “In my day…we didn’t have no Brut cologne.  We just smelled like Doc Martens and grape Hubba Bubba…and we liked it.”

In the meantime, rock on 70s dudes, rock on!

1974: New Hair!

1974: what a year!

Brylcreem ran an ad touting the virtues of the “NEW” short hair. They “explained the difference between the short hair that went away and the short hair that’s coming back.” Ads, I guess, were always more lenghty then, and they used their space to tell you how to order your barber around to get the “NEW HAIR.” The style was a hint at the Luke Skywalker ‘do (or non-’do that was to come. Do you think barbers were helpful that their customers knew what they wanted, or do you think ol Bob and Gus who were cutting the dude’s hair since they were five years old thought, “Don’t tell me how to do my job?”

At any rate, here is how to get it:

Ask your barber to scissor your hair – no clippers – to a length of about an inch on top and in back, graduating to about an inch and a half in front and on the sides.

Around the neck and ears hair should be left shaggy enough so that it will still meet your collar and the tops of your ears. Trim your sideburns slightly, to the middle of your ears. Now you have only two problems to cope with: fuzziness and dryness. In no time short hair can look like sunburned straw. It needs frequent conditioning.

Re-enter Brylcreen, the conditioning hair dressing.

Oh, so this is not REALLY a public service announcement.   You can’t get the style if you don’t use Brylcreem!  By the way, Virginia Slims may have said “You’ve come a long way, baby,” but Brylcreen says:

We’ve come a long way since “a little dab’ll do ya.”

Wait a sec. My first grade teacher said that about glue! We used to use so much that we would have to peel the rest off our hands like we were shedding snakes when we got home.

One may wonder what the difference between 1974 and the current “I am sort of starting to grow my hair out” looks?  This was actual a specific style that one worked towards versus just “letting it happen.”

The part that I thought was particularly funny, is that the ad proclaims that this would be the style SURELY that would last for many years to come.  SURELY the writer didn’t see Disco or hair bands, or even Robert Plant coming.  Or they didn’t want to.