The campaign was launched to market Old Spice's Red Zone After Hours Body Wash, but was subsequently expanded to include other products, following its success.

While reciting the monologues, Mustafa progresses through various activities, locations, costumes, and extraordinary situations, all in one uninterrupted take while maintaining constant eye-contact with the camera in a nonchalant demeanor.

Old Spice took on several celebrity spokespeople popular with younger consumers, such as the actors Neil Patrick Harris and Will Ferrell, and the rap artist LL Cool J.

It debuted on U.S. television four days later during the commercial breaks for new episodes of American Idol and Lost and coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

[9] Filmed at the same time as the main commercial was a 15-second "sting"[10] entitled "Did You Know", in which the camera zooms out of Mustafa to reveal that he is riding a horse backwards.

The scenery splits in half (as do false legs and a towel) and pulls away to reveal Mustafa log rolling before he walks across the surface of a lake (catching a falling cake mid-stride) into a kitchen (power-sawing a countertop mid-stride) to the top of a waterfall, which he "swan dives" off into a hot tub, which then collapses to reveal that Mustafa is sitting on a motorcycle, his shorts having been replaced by jeans.

He performs the entire commercial without breaking eye contact with the camera, while addressing female viewers and asking rhetorical questions on what they like, implying that if their man used Old Spice, then he could bring them these things.

[11] The ad was again shot primarily in one take, involving an automatically rolling log, an under-water platform, and a set consisting of the kitchen, waterfall and hot tub containing water and a motorcycle.

Footage of rehearsals of the ad begin with the log-rolling, suggesting that the opening beach segment may include separately shot or computer-generated elements.

Aside from the guitar, the palace and the Komodo dragon, in "Scent Vacation" Mustafa also picks up a mountain goat, which he spins around to reveal a harp.

The New York Daily News gave the initial ad a favorable mention, citing Mustafa's "wildly smug, cool-cat smooth dude persona", which "helped make the cologne commercial pop".

[23] However, his narrations do not go as smoothly: the dropped shirt fails to fall around his neck; the clam containing the tickets bites his nose, forcing him to fling it away; and despite claiming he is on a horse at the end, he is actually on a cow.

[27] It was parodied by How It Should Have Ended for an episode on It Chapter Two, in which the character Mike (who is played by Mustafa in the film) puts his own spin on the commercial's lines.