Hai Karate was one of those aftershaves that sold the joke as much as the scent.
It launched in 1967 and the whole idea was that the stuff made a man so irresistible that women would practically attack him. That is why the package and commercials leaned into the gag that every man needed self-defense instructions after putting it on. The famous warning was: “Be careful how you use it.”
The commercials were pure 1960s and early 1970s male fantasy advertising. A regular guy splashes on Hai Karate, and suddenly a woman goes wild for him. He has to use goofy karate moves to fend her off. It was played for broad slapstick laughs, with the martial arts craze and the “irresistible aftershave” idea mashed together into one very memorable campaign.
The campaign came from the ad firm McCaffrey & McCall, and one of the people behind the marketing plan was George Newall, who later became famous as a co-creator and songwriter for Schoolhouse Rock!
Looking back, it feels like the granddaddy of those later body spray ads where one spritz supposedly turns you into a babe magnet. Back then, though, Hai Karate had the extra gimmick: not only would women chase you, but you might need to defend yourself afterward.
It was silly, sexist, over-the-top, and very much of its time. But that is exactly why people remember it. The bottle may have been aftershave, but the real product was the joke.
