The Old Spice campaign is the latest social media case study held up as a shining light of how to conduct an integrated social program that uses all medium available to delight its audience.
The original ad launched back in Feb and was followed up by another 30 sec ad (both are embedded below for you viewing pleasure) before this month, when they began a social media engagement push by making personalized videos which were sent to influencers like Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano and Evan Williams, so a good mix of tech and celebrity, plus a bunch to other ‘normal people’ who had posted or tweeted comments.
Personally, (and I know I am not alone here) I think it was one of the best campaigns I have seen in a long time that uses social at its core. The original message was funny, engaging and appealed to both sexes, it was placed well, they assigned the correct budget, they targeted the correct mix of ‘influencers’ (subjective I know, but humour me) and used the social channels to continue the engagement. What is even more impressive is their attempt to totally rebrand an outdated product and pitch it at totally new audience of under 40’s females compared to over 50’s males!
The results seemed equally awesome. The original ad received over 12m views on YouTube and won various awards, the YouTube channel was the most viewed last month, the follow up videos garnered a ridiculous amount of online buzz…but guess what?
….sales are down…wait…or are they? It seems that sales for all Old Spice products took a dive from Feb until June but have seen resurgence this month off the back of the fan engagement push (the response videos). The numbers aren’t 100% clear at the moment and we need a few more months of sales data to make an accurate call.
What is clear is that the social media spend from this point on, should be on trying to build a community that can help define future product and maybe that is what the Old Spice crew are planning…I hope so!! They have captured a huge amount of attention and are now well placed to activate the 5th P in Brian Solis’ new marketing rules – People.
The long term value of social for a business lies in research, intelligence, support and innovation rather than ‘campaigns’. Using traditional marketing techniques are still vital to build awareness but the new marketing techniques need to be activated to keep the brand live and relevant to the customers.
Original
Follow Up
