Some Thoughts on the Old Spice campaign
The idea behind it is pretty simple. The beefy Old Spice Guy from the TV spots responds to users on Twitter and from elsewhere around the Web with hilarious YouTube videos of TV spot-like quality. The videos then get watched, re-tweeted, Facebooked and otherwise shared out all over.
It's genius in its simplicity. But the execution is what is really impresses me. According to the ReadWriteWeb article on the topic, here's how the videos are being made:
Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director at Wieden ... says that the primary differentiator between this campaign and others is how closely technical and social media specialists are working with the creative team ...
"We brought social media experts right into the creative process," he told me. "In the room there are two social media guys and a tech guy who built a system pulling in comments from around the web all together in real time," Tait says.
"We're looking at who's written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we're editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web...in real time."
Smartly, part of their strategy is also to reach out to users with a significant amount of social influence. They have responded to people such as Kevin Rose, Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano, and more. Their replies then get re-tweeted by these influencers and seen by their many followers.
Here's one of my favorites, a reply to Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter:
The other key to this campaign's succes I think is the real time aspect of it all. The fact that the team can crank these high quality videos out in real time is just stunning and I think that is part of the fascination. "You mean they responded to a user with 25 followers with a video two hours later?"
The steady stream of content also provides a latest-and-greatest effect, where every time a new one comes out people want to be the first among their friends to tweet or share it.
In what appears to be their last tweet and video, the Old Spice guy says that “like all great things this too must end.”
As it does, I imagine other advertisers will be looking to this as a case study in how to leverage a successful TV campaign into a highly viral online one. As Old Spice has shown here, it can be a very powerful combination.
Old Spice and Wieden+Kennedy have set the standard in the age of social media and real time. And we can only be left in awe of its manliness.
