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Gordon Bowman

I'm in Sales at Pandora.

Previously I started a startup, BlastGroups.

Things I'm passionate about: making things of value, venture capital, technology, startups, product strategy, simple design,   branding, creative advertising.

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Iain Tait, global interactive creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, on the Old Spice campaign

Why does the real time nature of this have such power?

Real time is what drives the Internet. New news is what everyone wants to get a hold of. Everyone is a publisher in their own way. Everyone wants to be tweeting or blogging about something that they are first to be in on. What we've done here is blur the lines between things that people don't expect to be able to be done in real time. So that's the surprise, that "Hang on, you're producing these things kind of in real time? How on earth are you doing that?" Every time one comes out and nails it again, it's seen as almost a new piece of news.

Why do you think social media and online influencers are so important to business right now?

One of the questions that keeps coming up is people saying, "Ok, this is great, but will it make me buy more Old Spice?" If you look at the comments that are publicly saying, "I'm going to go and try Old Spice after this, I'm going to wear more Old Spice," the groundswell of people saying that they are going to consume more Old Spice, I don't know whether that is true or not, if people are actually going to go to the pharmacy and buy Old Spice, but...

But I bet a whole load of them are going to go into the aisle and take the top off an Old Spice and smell it. People that may never have done it before. That peer recommendation and seeing that real people are actually talking about this, in a way that not only says they enjoy the entertainment, but that there are smart people in these networks making the connection between the content, the product and the experience of the product.

It's just incredibly powerful and we're only just beginning to see how powerful that can be.

via fastcompany.com

My two favorite questions from Iain Tait's Fast Company interview on the online Old Spice campaign.

His responses echo my thoughts on the Old Spice campaign and how real time was so important to its success.


Filed under  //  branding   interview   marketing   strategy  
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Some Thoughts on the Old Spice campaign

Old Spice is on an absolute tear with their current online campaign. Props to Proctor & Gamble for having the cojones to let Wieden+Kennedy run with it. The creative team at Wieden+Kennedy continues to impress (see previous). 

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."
via readwriteweb.com

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.


Filed under  //  branding   marketing   social media   strategy  
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