Isaiah Mustafa: Old Spice — Six-panel comic parody of an Old Spice shower ad involving a basketball and a watermelon

Isaiah Mustafa: Old Spice

2010viral videoclassic

Published September 1, 2026

Isaiah Mustafa: Old Spice is the 2010 ad campaign starring former NFL wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa as 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,' the shirtless, bathroom-based pitchman for the grooming brand. What began as a Super Bowl spot turned into a real-time YouTube reply blitz that became a defining case study of viral marketing.

advertising memes catchphrase memes super bowl memes late 2000s memes youtube viral

Overview

The bit is built around Mustafa delivering a fast, deadpan monologue straight to camera while the set morphs around him in a single continuous take, sliding from bathroom to shower to beach and finally putting him on top of a horse1. The character speaks in absurd second-person commands ('Look at your man, now back to me'), and the joke works because he never breaks the confident, straight-faced pitchman voice while the world behind him gets ridiculous.

The July 2010 follow-up turned the character into an interactive act: Mustafa filmed short YouTube video replies to tweets, Reddit threads and Facebook comments in near real time, addressing celebrities, bloggers and random fans by name2. That reply format is what pushed 'Old Spice Guy' from a TV ad into a full-blown internet catchphrase machine, endlessly quoted with lines like 'I'm on a horse'3.

Origin & Background

Platform
TV (Super Bowl) / YouTube (viral spread)
Key People
Wieden+Kennedy, starring Isaiah Mustafa
Date
2010

Isaiah Mustafa debuted as the Old Spice pitchman during Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010, in a 30-second spot titled 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like'3. The ad was written and produced by creatives Craig Allen and Eric Kallman at Portland agency Wieden+Kennedy, and used clever practical effects and single-take camera moves to transport Mustafa from a bathroom to a beach to the back of a horse3.

The original video was uploaded to Old Spice's YouTube channel around the same broadcast window and quickly racked up millions of views on its own, ahead of any sequel spots4.

How It Spread

The bigger cultural moment came on July 14, 2010, when Old Spice and Wieden+Kennedy locked Mustafa in a studio for a three-day real-time video response campaign, filming and posting more than 186 personalized YouTube replies to comments pulled from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Digg3. The stunt was covered by Mashable, TechCrunch, Fast Company and Jezebel within days, and Google CFO Patrick Pichette even name-checked the Old Spice YouTube 'tweetathon' during a July 2010 earnings call as an example of where advertising was headed1.

By late July 2010, video analytics firm Visible Measures told Adweek that total web views across all Old Spice brand videos had hit 110 million, and Nielsen data cited by Mashable showed Old Spice Body Wash sales up 55% over three months and 107% over the previous month2. Reddit users spun up a downloadable voicemail site, oldspicevoicemail.com, using clips of Mustafa's voice, which Old Spice's own Twitter account then promoted3.

Not every outlet bought the sales narrative, with Jezebel pushing back on the idea that the campaign directly drove long-term Old Spice revenue5. Even so, the character kept its status as an internet mascot: in August 2011, Old Spice Guy won G4's MEMEFIGHT bracket of 32 internet memes, beating Demotivational Posters in the final round3.

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase form typically apes Mustafa's cadence, opening with 'Hello, ladies' or the 'Look at your man, now back to me' structure and pivoting into an absurd non sequitur. Video remixes often keep the single-take, background-swap gag, with edits or fan skits placing a shirtless pitchman in wildly changing sets to sell anything from software to fandoms.

Frequently Asked Questions