Media Credit: Old Spice
Think you have nothing in common with the Witcher? Sure, he's got spells and ghouls and all that. But you know what else he has? Body odor.
Enter: The Netflix-Old Spice collab the world didn't know to ask for.
If you haven’t watched it yet, “The Witcher” is a fantasy-drama Netflix series based on Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher books. The show is set on a fictional, medieval-inspired landmass known as the Continent.
To promote the second season of the streamer's dark fantasy series "The Witcher," Old Spice and Netflix partnered on a line of deodorants and an ad campaign titled "Ode to Smell."
"No One Can Run, No One Can Hide, from the Perils of B.O.”
Imagine living in medieval times when people only bathed once a month or less: NO, thank you. This smelly thought was the inspiration behind the “Ode to Smell” campaign. The ad features Season 1 actor David Broughton Davies, who, in the ad, plays a councilman leading a tavern full of peasants in a shanty-like song about how a curse has befallen everyone. Now, everything smells horribly bad, making people throw up, mice run and hide, and horses drop their jaws from the nastiness.
Sure, the ad was great, but this collab definitely wasn't only about that. The other important part is the physical product: six limited-edition scents inspired by the characters and locations of “The Witcher” world: three pleasant ones – Smell of Surprise, Yennefer's Underarm and Blaviken Butchering – and three stinky ones – Roach, Geralt's Bathwater and Kikimora Corpse.
To save you the hassle of imagining how these deodorants smell, here’s how Old Spice described them:
- Blaviken Butchering: “The reek of a market hits thy nose, spices and fruits ere they decompose, Oh the, scent of Blaviken sweet as angel’s breath, before the butcher came and it smelled like death.”
- Yennefer's Underarm: “Flowers and fruits is how Yennefer smells, but why bother bathing when you can cast a spell, one whiff of her odor and you’re enthralled by her charms. Now imagine that power in the pits of your arms.”
- Smell of Surprise: “This scent is thine, but thou cannot yet know, will it be friend or will it be foe? No elder could tell you no matter how wise, that’s why it’s called the smell of surprise.”
- Roach: “The behind of Geralt’s faithful steed, makes an almighty reek indeed. The more they adventure the more his love grows, yet her rump tortures even his nose.”
- Geralt's Bathwater: “This, scent is made from Geralt’s bath water. As pungent as week old battle slaughter, a soup of dirt and grime and blood, conveniently in a stick form.”
- Kikimora Corpse: “The carcass of a kikimora rots very slowly, the gases it emits are rather unholy, a stench that would make a thousand knights sick, taken from a swamp, taken from a swamp and turned into this stick.”
“Smelly Bard Bot”
For the new line, Old Spice created a custom-made chatbot on Reddit, R/SmellyBardBot, emulating "The Witcher" comic-relief character Jaskier, a traveling bard. This, according to Old Spice, is the first time a consumer-packaged brand (CPG) has a custom-promoted chatbot on the platform.
An AI Randomizer helps the bot interact with users. While it’s a limited edition, fans who miss out on the deodorants can still receive one of 1,000 "rub & sniff" trading cards, adding a collectibles aspect to the push.
And to make the Old Spice x “The Witcher” tie-in more fun, scents like Yennefer’s Underarm are available for fans to win through a trivia contest at OldSpice.com/Witcher.
Making sure the Witcher fans wouldn't miss the ads, the campaign raises the level with hidden Witcher references and a first-ever look at the new Little Horse character in Season 3. This collab also caught the attention of social media influencers who showed up on their platforms and showed their followers what Yennefer's Underarm Or Geralt's Bathwater would smell like.
A Content Collab with a Witcher scent
A good collaboration always comes with financial gains. However, what is as important (or even more important) is the reach the campaign gets and how far the brand understands the new audience it’s interacting with.
Old Spice also put a significant effort in terms of audience engagement, reaching the fanbase through creating a custom-promoted chatbot on Reddit, then using an AI Randomizer to help interact with users. Meanwhile, Netflix, which does not run ads, benefits from brand partnerships like this since it shares its content with a broader audience.
When Old Spice launched these limited edition scents with Netflix, it used content collaboration to reach a new audience, not only “The Witcher” fans but also the Netflix audience in general, along with social media influencers as a part of content marketing. All surely helped push brand awareness forward and reach new millennials and Gen Z audiences.
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