Old Spice — "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like"
A 30-second spot that talked past the user (men) and directly to the buyer (their partners).
123Fig. 01 — Annotated creative
Old Spice was a brand grandfathers used. Its problem wasn't the product — it was the shopper. Most body wash was bought by women for the men in their house. So W+K made an ad that aimed past the user entirely.
The whole thing is a one-take bravado piece — set changes happen on camera, the actor walks through impossible transitions, all in service of the implicit claim: "watch how confidently we control this frame." That confidence IS the product positioning.
The aspirational mirror is doing brutal work. It doesn't show the viewer. It shows the viewer's partner what they could have, then turns back to the viewer with "look at your man, now back to me." It's a triangle ad, not a duo ad.
What made it actually work was the follow-up: 186 personalized response videos in two days. The ad seeded the language; the response videos turned the brand into a participatory toy.