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Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

tv.yahoo.com

21–30 of 54 posts

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#21
This really is a poor article.

It's not stated if that's a new product or an established one they are talking about. Also, whilst they say one product is down, what about the others? If you dig into the bnet article (http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/10007535/the-old-spice-...) you see that the sales figures are for the 52 weeks upto the 13 June - long before the online campaign started.

All the yahoo video links fail to load properly for me. The mention YouTube but don't link to it all. They link to their own previous coverage for no good reason.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#22
post #9

My first instincts are to assume this is a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" statement. Just because sales are falling doesn't mean the commercial is ineffective. After all, how do you know that sales wouldn't be down 14% without the ads?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this", is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) which states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#23
post #3

> perfect example of the male body Ha! I must spend too much time around weightlifters/powerlifters. He looked a little scrawny to me. Another interesting case of internet popularity not translating into sales was "Snakes on a Plane". From wikipedia: """ Due to the Internet hype surrounding the film, industry analysts estimated the film's opening box office to be between US$20 million and US$30 million.[4] While Snak…

While I admire powerlifters, I wouldn't consider an extremely muscular body aesthetically perfect. My man crush is on athletes who are muscular but not extremely so, like Greg Louganis, Rafer Johnson, or Roger Federer. Federer can carry my bags any day ;-)

[deleted]

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#24
post #3

> perfect example of the male body Ha! I must spend too much time around weightlifters/powerlifters. He looked a little scrawny to me. Another interesting case of internet popularity not translating into sales was "Snakes on a Plane". From wikipedia: """ Due to the Internet hype surrounding the film, industry analysts estimated the film's opening box office to be between US$20 million and US$30 million.[4] While Snak…

While I admire powerlifters, I wouldn't consider an extremely muscular body aesthetically perfect. My man crush is on athletes who are muscular but not extremely so, like Greg Louganis, Rafer Johnson, or Roger Federer. Federer can carry my bags any day ;-)

I never said that powerlifters were perfect. There are obviously many attractive body types. And almost anything is more attractive than the fat standard. Physical beauty is pretty small thing. We all get old. It matters a lot more what you create and how you treat children.

I was just making a little observation about how much perspective matters. No insult was intended for the gentlemen in question. It's just that after hanging around with powerlifters I probably would call someone with a bigger chest/shoulders perfect.

But downvote away! I have karma to burn.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#25
post #18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean with "tried"? What did you actually do with it?

Tried as in used it once and then threw it away because I got a rash. I sometimes get it when I don't have deodorant and am in a new location and the convenience store only carries Old Spice for some reason and I'm in too much of a rush to care.

Everyone's different. This person is just as likely to get a rash from your favorite deodorant as they are Old Spice. There's nothing inherently wrong with Old Spice.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#26
post #3

> perfect example of the male body Ha! I must spend too much time around weightlifters/powerlifters. He looked a little scrawny to me. Another interesting case of internet popularity not translating into sales was "Snakes on a Plane". From wikipedia: """ Due to the Internet hype surrounding the film, industry analysts estimated the film's opening box office to be between US$20 million and US$30 million.[4] While Snak…

While I admire powerlifters, I wouldn't consider an extremely muscular body aesthetically perfect. My man crush is on athletes who are muscular but not extremely so, like Greg Louganis, Rafer Johnson, or Roger Federer. Federer can carry my bags any day ;-)

I agree. And Isaiah Mustafa (the actor) is a former wide receiver in the NFL, so he's got an athlete's body.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#27
post #9

My first instincts are to assume this is a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" statement. Just because sales are falling doesn't mean the commercial is ineffective. After all, how do you know that sales wouldn't be down 14% without the ads?

If that's the case then you can say the commercial is ineffective, because you can say that the commercial didn't raise sales. You can never conclusively say that the commercial raised sales when they're up or lowered sales when they're down, but the commercial surely didn't raise sales when they're down.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#29
post #6

Forbes contradicts this ( http://tinyurl.com/2exqhg7 ). Here's the quote... And, perhaps, persuasive. Total sales for Old Spice body wash at supermarkets, drugstores and mass market retailers excluding Wal-Mart were up 16.7% in the 52-week period ending June 13, according to SymphonyIRI Group, a Chicago-based market research firm. So the yahoo article is singling out the one sub-brand of body wash in the Old Spice Ma…

When did they start running the ads? That increase could have been at the beginning of that year-long period.

The first ad in the series ran during the Super Bowl in February.

Re: Reality: Old Spice sales are down since ad campaign began

#30
post #25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried as in used it once and then threw it away because I got a rash. I sometimes get it when I don't have deodorant and am in a new location and the convenience store only carries Old Spice for some reason and I'm in too much of a rush to care.

Everyone's different. This person is just as likely to get a rash from your favorite deodorant as they are Old Spice. There's nothing inherently wrong with Old Spice.

This is not explicitly true. Old Spice products use aluminum compounds in their deodorants aluminum based compounds especially when as fine as they are in deodorant are generally an irritant and a poison for your body. It's been proven to cause Alzheimers. I use Adidas 24 Hour control which doesn't contain aluminum.

It's common to be allergic to aluminum.

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