Old Spice Man Returns Ahead of Super Bowl Sunday

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Following the viral success of its TV spots and subsequent YouTube-based campaign last year, Procter & Gamble-owned Old Spice is resurrecting its towel-clad mascot to coincide with Super Bowl ad season.

The brand posted a video today titled "I'm Back," in which "Old Spice Man" describes his return to the world of advertising. "These advertisements carry an entertainment value that is second to none," he brags, in reference to a series of three new commercials due to air the day after the Super Bowl on February 7th.

To generate buzz around the new ads, a single Old Spice "superfan" will be given the opportunity to debut the first ad exclusively on his or her own social networking profile or feed sometime before it airs on TV, according to Wieden and Kennedy, the agency behind the campaign.

Following the success of the original TV campaign that aired on Super Bowl Sunday last year - though not during the Super Bowl itself - a viral video campaign on YouTube orchestrated by W+K attracted an impressive 35 million video views in just seven days in July.

That campaign saw the brand mascot posting answers to as many questions from social media users as possible via the medium of YouTube video, and resulted in a total of 183 unique responses and one of the most effective viral social media campaigns to date.

"We anticipated it would be popular, but didn't anticipate this," said Jason Bagley, creative director at the agency, at the time "If you'd have told us at the beginning we would attract 20 million views we'd have laughed. We still can't really get our heads around it," he added.

In July Bagley said the agency was already thinking about ideas for a new campaign and was "extremely excited" about the prospects, so the superfan concept might not be the only digital iteration we see of the Old Spice Man this year.