Tag Archives: Old Spice

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Procter & Gamble's New Look for Old Spice

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By Demitrios Kalogeropoulos, The Motley Fool

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Old Spice is getting some new digs. Procter & Gamble just unveiled a line of bar soaps aimed at freshening up the 75-year-old grooming brand.

Source: Procter & Gamble.

Already the leader in body wash sales for men, P&G is hoping its new product will appeal to the 40% of guys who prefer to use bar soap but don’t have many options as far as “manly scents” go.

It sure could use a sales spark. The company has been suffering through a slump lately. Sales increased by just 3% last year, while earnings fell by 7%. Profits were down, too, with gross margin slipping by 1.6 percentage points in 2012 after a 1.4-percentage-point drop the prior year. Worse yet, the company’s sales volumes didn’t improve over 2011, which left price increases as the sole engine for revenue growth last year. P&G blamed the weak global economy for helping to keep consumers away.

Still, competition had more than a little to do with P&G’s losses. Unilever notched a much stronger 7% rise in sales last year. And the company managed solid volume growth of better than 3%. Ditto for Colgate-Palmolive, which grew revenue and sales volumes by more than 2% last year.

P&G has since clawed back a bit of the market share it lost to rivals, and cost cuts have also helped boost P&G’s profits recently. However, it won’t get the serious business improvements it needs without rising sales volumes.

And that’s why innovation is critical to the company’s goals this year. It saw success with Tide brand Pods, which quickly grew into a disruptive sales leader in the laundry category. P&G says it has more of those types of “discontinuous innovations” in the pipeline, of the kind that “obsolete current products and create new categories and new brands.”

So investors can expect P&G to make a few more product announcements like this in the quarters ahead. Heavy spending on marketing is also in the cards, as the company looks to support all the new product rollouts. P&G has said that it expects big sales growth in the second half of the year. It’s time to start delivering on that goal.

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The article Procter & Gamble’s New Look for Old Spice originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Demitrios Kalogeropoulos has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Looking to Lure Younger Men, Old Spice Expands Bar Soap Line

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By The Associated Press

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By MAE ANDERSON

NEW YORK — Old Spice is raising the bar, literally.

The aftershave brand, which is known for appealing to more mature men, is introducing a line of scented soap bars this month.

It may seem odd that Procter & Gamble Co. (PG), which has fought in recent years to refashion its 75-year-old Old Spice brand to target younger men, is rolling out something that some people consider antiquated.

After all, not much has changed with bar soap since P&G introduced Ivory soap in 1879. Body wash has eclipsed bar soap sales in 2010, according to research firm Euromonitor International.

Bar soap sales edged up just 1 percent in the U.S. between 2007 and 2012 to $1.62 billion, according to the firm’s data. Meanwhile, body wash revenue jumped 30 percent during the same period to total $2.44 billion.

But Old Spice executives say their interviews with thousands of men each year indicate that bar soap is popular among men. Some say it’s what they grew up with, others prefer the “squeaky clean” feeling of bar soap and others just like that it’s cheaper than body wash, he said.

“We know that 42 percent of guys use bar soap in the shower, but only 15 percent of bar soap has ‘manly’ scents,” said Jason Partin, Old Spice brand manager.

The rest are odor neutral or have feminine scent, he said, leaving an opening for Old Spice.

The new soaps come in Old Spice‘s three most popular scents: “Fiji,” a summery scent, “Power Sport,” a fresher, clean scent, and “Swagger,” which is slightly musky. They’re aimed at 25- to 34-year-old men, and will cost $3.99 for a 6-pack and $1.79 for a 2-pack.

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To rev up interest, the company is rolling out an ad campaign on Tuesday that includes spots that make fun of jingle-laden soap commercials from the 1980s.

One shows a man showering with the soap in a gym locker room and then cutting open a basketball to reveal a watermelon-like inside. “It’s a really weird commercial for soap,” the accompanying jingle trills.

Another shows a man showering with the soap and then having the shower following him everywhere — even when he is in the middle of operating on a patient and when he goes out to dinner with a beautiful woman.

“The freshness will follow you all through your day,” the jingle states. “This could actually be a fairly serious problem.”

Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer product maker whose products range from Tide detergent to Crest toothpaste and Gillette razors, has focused on rolling out new products in North America as it lowers costs to boost its bottom line.

Old Spice, with about $564 million in annual sales, according to Bernstein estimates, is not a large …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Old Spice Introduces New Bar Soap Lineup (Rope Not Included), Showering Guys with the Bar Soap They'

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Old Spice Introduces New Bar Soap Lineup (Rope Not Included), Showering Guys with the Bar Soap They’ve Been Smelling For

Brand revives classic jingle-based soap television creative from yesteryear

CINCINNATI–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Filling a void in the marketplace when it comes to guy bar soapers in need of a more masculine smelling bar, the Old Spice brand from Procter & Gamble (NYS: PG) today announced it is introducing an all-new lineup of manly scented bar soaps to the brand’s versatile collection of male grooming products. Arriving in stores this month, new Old Spice bar soap is available in the brand’s three most popular scents – Fiji, Pure Sport and Swagger.

Pure Sport High Endurance six pack (Photo: Business Wire)

“With new Old Spice bar soap, we wanted show the more than 40 percent of guys who are bar soap loyalists that we have their backs when it comes to manly scented shower equipment,” said Joe Arcuri, Vice President, North America Beauty Care at Procter & Gamble. “We know many guys are living with an unspoken shame – that they simply use whatever bar soap is already in the shower based on what the woman in their life purchased and is often using. I guess we’re also in the business of helping guys reclaim their territory in the shower.”

To complement the launch of its new lineup of bar soaps, Old Spice will roll out a new broadcast television advertising campaign that pays tribute to the popular jingle soap commercials of the 1980s and 1990s. Developed by Wieden+Kennedy (Portland, Ore.), the campaign demonstrates how guys can wash their body the manly way, with manly scented bar soap to the tune of an extremely masculine, yet incredibly informative jingle about their life story. The campaign will launch with two television ads, “Shower” (:30/:15) and “Watermelon” (:15) on April 9, with a third spot to debut this summer.

The new Old Spice bar soap launch also will be supported by a cinema and dedicated online campaign with rich media banners bringing the marketing creative’s tagline – “The Bar Soap You’ve Been Smelling For” – to life.

As the No.1 selling anti-perspirant/deodorant stick and body wash brand with guys, Old Spice is offering bar soap users the opportunity to bring their favorite Old Spice scents into the shower …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Movies & TV

Momoa Passes on Marvel's Guardians?

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Looks like the Guardians of the Galaxy will be short my sun and stars as Game of Thrones’ Jason Momoa has reportedly passed on playing Drax the Destroyer in Marvel’s upcoming movie.

Momoa was first linked with the role earlier this month, with Marvel reportedly also screen-testing Isaiah Mustafa (yes, the Old Spice guy), MMA fighter and former wrestler Dave Bautista (The Scorpion King 3, The Man With the Iron Fists), and Brian Patrick Wade (Generation Kill) at the time.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at IGN Movies