The above advert for Old Spice takes some of the myths that we all hold true and extrapolates them to the extreme. A perfect man, “The man your man could smell like” is presented in the advert that comments both on the stereotypical man that every woman wants and the mythological world that these ideas are born from.
The ad (shot in just one take) has 3 distinct scenes — in a bathroom, on a boat and on a beach. We seamlessly switch between these 3 scenes in a manner that shows just how fragile our “reality” really is. The bathroom is not really a bathroom, just 3 walls on a boat—a set, and the boat we were we are on is not really at sea, its just an illusion.
This all just to do with what’s happening in the background, which many people may not notice or just excuse as special effects (in reality the only special effects are the diamond waterfall out of his hand and the rising Old Spice bottle from his palm.) What everyone else will definitely notice is exactly what the perfect man is saying.
“Look at your man, now look at me, now back at your man, now back to me; sadly your man is not me.” The advert is making an explicit comparison between your man and the perfect man, and at the same time acknowledging the perfection is unobtainable.
“It’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love.” A line that suggests that even the perfect man doesn’t really care what you think or what you like. He’s willing to keep you happy but really, he’s not interested. The tickets then turn into diamonds, supposedly a woman’s best friend.
My favourite part of this advertisement is the causal line at the end, “I’m on a horse” as the camera zooms out and we see that the perfect man has managed to find himself on a white horse. This does two things, it connects with the myth of the knight in shining armour or the prince riding a white horse but it also makes a comment about the bizarreness of advertising today, and that although anything is possibly in advertising today, it doesn’t always make sense in reality.
