The art of selling

Video settings 'Old Spice Man' flirts with Bondi Beach Internet sensation Isaiah 'Old Spice' Mustafa Rosetta Stone outlet deploys a charm offensive on Bondi Beach while promoting a new phone. Video feedback Video settings There's not much to say about body wash really. It smells nice, it cleans you, and unlike soap, hairs won't stick to it. End of story, you might think. But throw in a handsome guy in a towel, a kitsch '80s action hero aesthetic, some priceless lines and the giddy reach of the internet and the narrative possibilities are legion. This year, tens of millions of people visited YouTube to watch a deep-voiced American actor, Isaiah Mustafa, spruik body wash in some TV ads, then answer fans' questions in a torrent of kooky, personalised videos. Old Spice's YouTube videos attracted more than 100 million views, making theirs the most watched sponsored channel ever. Mustafa got a movie deal, of course, while his more famous lines ("Hello, ladies...Look at your man. Now back to me") entered popular discourse. The ads won an Emmy award and sparked numerous online parodies (including a choice one from Sesame Street's Grover). Even World Vision chief Tim Costello got in on the act: posting a crazy-brave video of himself in a bathrobe, reworking Old Spice Guy's lines, in an effort to attract charity donors. Advertisement: Story continues below Grover spoofs the Old Spice ad for Sesame Street. The Old Spice Guy phenomenon shows the power of viral advertising: quirky videos that take off via online word of mouth. It's a telling example, too, of how advertising is morphing into entertainment. No one forced people to watch these ads. They sought them out. And once they had seen them, thousands sent Mustafa messages in fervent hope of an answer. How could so many Rosetta Stone Spanish Spain people get so excited about an actor flogging body wash? The same way, perhaps, that around 14 million folk have become Coca-Cola's Facebook fans. On the ?internet, the lines between advertising and independent content are blurring. For younger people especially, clever ads can be a source of fun. Some feel a sense of loyalty towards particular brands and quite a few want to make ads. When Cadbury invited Australians to film themselves eating a Picnic bar in a 30-second TV spot, ,000 people ? submitted videos. Once, advertising was the art of persuasion. Today, argues James Othmer, an American ad man turned author, it's the art of engagement. He thinks the age of "inflicted media" assailing us with ads has given way to one where consumers increasingly control interaction with the brand. The Gruen Transfer team. Those of us who feel bombarded by marketing messages 24 hours a day might beg to differ with Othmer. We all know the ad cliches by nowhousewife inspecting a stain on her whites; superannuated couple holding hands on a beach; farmer surveying sun-kissed fields; bloke ogling bikini girls but more in love with his burgerand many of us are sick of them. A recent British study found nearly 90 per cent? of those with digital video recorders edited out TV ads. These days, the language of marketing is so pervasive that even political parties and people can be described as brands. Most brands sell a feeling rather than the merits of a product. They like to "own" emotions, as Rosetta Stone Spanish V3 Othmer puts it. (One fast-food client of his modestly wanted to "own" happiness.) "We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality," Naomi Klein has famously said, "because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other." Yet at the same time, advertising can no longer be cast merely as an intrusion.