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Changing the Old Spice message

Agenda Inc.'s Live Feed notes a recent BusinessWeek article about the repositioning of the Old Spice brand of deodorant.
Procter & Gamble (PG ) bought Old Spice from American Cyanamid in 1990 for $300 million. While it was largely an aftershave with a graying customer base, Old Spice had a small deodorant business. P&G bought the brand specifically to get that male deodorant so it could develop it with the advantage of an established brand name.

P&G already had the dominant female brand with Secret. But in the last 18 months, Old Spice has become the top male brand as well. In a recent interview, Esi Eggleston Bracey, P&G's general manager of deodorants and antiperspirants, discussed the business and repositioning of Old Spice with BusinessWeek Correspondent Robert Berner.
Strangely, the report of that discussion doesn't once mention that the repositioning of the Old Spice brand involved two new product names for the trusty old brand.

An article in Marketing Magazine last year, based on a Bain & Company study, tells the same story a bit differently.
Some mature brands grew through innovating product formulas, others through repositioning. Take, for example, Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, which is more than half-a-century old. P&G introduced High Endurance deodorant in 1994 and Red Zone in 1999, both sporty repositionings of Old Spice to attract younger male consumers. High Endurance and Red Zone counted for more than 75% of Old Spice deodorant sales in 2001 and helped the brand grow 13% a year in a category eking out 1% annual growth, on average.
Would a deodorant by any old name smell as fresh?
Posted by abnu on Monday, October 25, 2004 @ 5:31 PM [ + ]

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