Arguably the Ultimate Social Media Response

July 27th, 2010 by Kirk Skodis under Newsworthy, Response, Social Media

After much debate about whether the Old Spice Guy’s YouTube response sensation moved the needle on sales, the results are in and according to Nielsen (via Mashable), sales are up 107% in the last month.

That’s great news for Old Spice, but ultimately this is about making your grandpa’s brand relevant to a new, modern customer. So how did Wieden + Kennedy turn their wildly popular Old Spice Guy spots into a viral sensation? Social media response, that’s how.

Let’s examine why these 87 short videos responding to celebs and common folk alike, resonated with people:

1. They leveraged a smart and popular campaign of TV spots.
2. The writing and delivery by Isaiah Mustafa was pitch-perfect awesomesauce.
3. The rapid-fire responses over an 11-hour marathon felt live and fresh.
4. Social media response connects consumers with a brand message like no other tactic available to marketers.

The great promise of social media for brands lies not in promotional Facebook pages, PR Twitter accounts and YouTube channels full of TV spots. No, the promise is fulfilled as brands connect with their customers in meaningful and human exchanges called trust transactions. A trust transaction is any encounter that results in an increase in confidence and loyalty.

In this instance it’s a fantasy spokesperson, but the truth cannot be denied; the magic of a real-time, two-way dialogue is a powerful branding and, as it turns out, sales technique.

UPDATE: W+K has released a case study of the campaign which helps to make my case (thanks guys!).



  • http://blog.ecairn.com Laurent Pfertzel

    Hi Kirk
    Seems like everybody is talking about old spice…thus even me, who had never heard about them before, know they exist and is more likely to try them when I go shopping for my next deodorant (mm but I smell naturally good so I don't need it..too bad).
    I really question how often they can make such a splash. Once it works because it's new but if they do it again, say in 6 months, will it work? I doubt.
    Laurent

  • Kirk Skodis

    So it seems to have worked on you! They've definitely broken through the clutter with this campaign after trying hard for years to redefine the brand as hip, cool and a little alternative. I doubt they will try exactly this approach in the future, but it opens up a lot of doors to try new things. I think as long as they keep upping the game, they'll win.

  • http://blog.ecairn.com Laurent Pfertzel

    I'm not sure it will make me buy their stuff ;-) . I don't care so much for the brand behind the “deodorant” anyway.
    What I think is that this is just an example of marketing in social media and not social media marketing. I think there's a big difference. Marketing in social media is using the SM channels and techniques but in the same old paradigm (advertising like in this case). Wheareas social media marketing is about communities of interest, network of peers, layers of influence in which brands have to naturally fit as if they were a welcome member that's relevant and add value.
    May be I've seen too many posts from marketers about old spice in my recent readings (as a matter of fact, I peruse here and there within a bucket of 1600 smm blogs on a daily basis and 'old spice' has been mentioned 400 times in the past 3 weeks…vs 0 before. They actually have gained a share of voice of 3% within those weeks but declining fast now ;-) .

  • http://blog.gettrustworthy.com Kirk Skodis

    Interesting distinction, Laurent, but I have a hard time classifying this particular piece of the Old Spice campaign as old-media advertising shoe-horned into a social media channel. The only part that felt too much like advertising was the responses to Twitter celebs, but you can't blame them for being smart.

    Perhaps it's doesn't fit within your definition of social media marketing (which we agree on), but maybe it falls somewhere in the middle. The element that pulls this away from marketing in social media is the response, in real-time, to real people who were thrilled to get the attention.

  • http://blog.ecairn.com Laurent Pfertzel

    May be that's what it is. That's why I make the disctinction between marketing in social media and social media marketing but those are just words for concepts. From what I've seen (but I may have missed something), the dialogue between old spice and consumers was very one to many. I didn't see customer to customer dialogue which is SMM at it's core. One person talks, the others listen, then another person talks and so on…a bit like when you sit around the campfire ;-) .

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