How P&G established brand Old Spice as a must have attribute of real men in Kazakhstan

Фото: архив пресс-службы

Beginning

Old Spice (a male deodorant brand) faced a big barrier, men in Kazakhstan did not believe they should use deodorants because it was not manly and masculine. Riding on the wave of the viral experience of their foreign colleagues, Old Spice Kazakhstan team decided to address this opinion through adapting a famous Old Spice marketing campaign to local Kazakhstani market. Their goal was to position fresh scent as a central attribute of masculinity.

In the words of Ruslan Gamzaev, Country Manager of P&G Central Asia, «Old Spice» globally is probably one of the brave and masculine enough to say to men: «Guys it’s perfectly normal to take care of yourself and smell good».

The Indian Giant Has Arrived

The team quickly realized that it was necessary to build the «Big Idea» of the project around the unshakable and archetypal attribute of any Kazakh man – owning a horse, boldly delivering the message to the target audience that fresh scent is as important as owning a horse.

From there, came the slogan «Исине сай, астына тай» (Kaz. «The better the scent, the better the horse») which was a play on the Kazakh folk proverb «Аузына май, Астына тай» (Kaz. a saying used when something good happens to a person.). This setting was the beginning of advertising campaign.

Irina Kairatovna

«There was some kind of balance between creative and advertising processes. Together with P&G team, we were involved from the very beginning of the process in order to make this campaign as vibrant as possible» emphasizes Malik Zenger, director of «Cheena» music video and «Old Spice» commercial.

«To strengthen local relevance even further, our team suggested to collaborate with the most popular music band Irina Kairatovna. This idea was an immediate hit.» – comments Mariya Mun, general producer.

«CHEENA»

When Old Spice Kazakhstan team first met with the group, it became apparent that they were looking at the project in a similar direction. At the call, they talked about the hero of the campaign. The hero character had to have a distinctive and recognizable image associated with «Old Spice», but at the same time, the audience had to be able to self-identify with him. Later on, while the lyrics were written, the main character appeared. The band suggested a name Cheena, that was approved by Old Spice team!

Иллюстрация: архив пресс-службы

Cheena was played by Kazakhstani film actor Rauan Romani. According to him, the actor’s task was to preserve recognizable image of Isiah Mustafa from original international Old Spice campaign, but in a relevant Kazakh style. In addition to the typical charismatic character, it was necessary to make him heartfelt and positive so that the audience would recognize him as «their guy».

«We originally had the goal of making a local hit song. We were looking for some tags to hook the listener and to make the song more viral. The word «қанағаттандырылмағандықтарыңыздан» became one of the viral elements,» says Aziz Alpysbaev, a member of the music label Jamal&Ganja and one of the music producers of Irina Kairatovna band.

The very name of the hero also played a role in campaign localization. After Cheena appeared on screens, viewers shared the video with all men named Cheena. This also brought Old Spice hero closer to people and promoted campaign.

Results

Old Spice «Cheena» campaign was executed across 360 degrees with branded music track, branded music video on Youtube, TV advertising, OOH advertising, influencer activation in social media and offline activations on music festivals and in-store. Results were a blast.

The music track topped charts of all music platforms, such as Apple Music and Spotify. It was streamed more than 39 million times and the number of listeners continues to grow even today, one year after launch.

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«The coverage here has been fantastic and record-breaking. We are proud to say that 90% of the target audience, men in Kazakhstan, saw our advertisement. The track has more than 39 million streams and the music video has been viewed more than 120 million times,» says Ruslan Gamzaev, Country Manager of P&G Central Asia.

Moreover, «Cheena» music video entered TOP 100 music videos in the world on Youtube. The track topped «Tiktok» charts and became the track of the year on Tik Tok in Kazakhstan in 2023. The group «Irina Kairatovna» won the awards of «Top likes», «Conquerer of the chart» and «Karaoke hit of the year» on «Yandex Music» platform.

You might think campaign was heavily pushed by media budgets, but it was not the case. Actually the song and the music video were such a fit with local audience, that the audience did the work to spread this campaign by themselves. UGC (user-generated content) on TikTok alone using the track «Cheena» totaled more than 3.5 million videos, that were viewed more than 3 billion times. This provided more than half a million USD worth of media coverage for free!

As a result of this campaign Old Spice itself set a record for deodorant sales in Kazakhstan and led to a 20% increase in the market share of Old Spice brand. At the same time, the total deodorant market grew by 18% in 2023.

This huge success was recognized by industry professionals. Old Spice «Cheena» received four awards at «Jolbors» marketing festival. This campaign also won three awards at «Red Apple» international advertising festival. Lately the campaign was also short listed in three categories at E+ marketing effectiveness festival.

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