By the time it peaked in mid-July the Old Spice advertising campaign was obviously something notable in the world of online marketing. It was not, however, an example of a new relationship between manufacturer and consumer: rather, it was an example of old-style marketing frocked up in a slick new see-through bathrobe.
How the story started
A 2009 article in Fast Company discussed Proctor and Gamble’s ambition to make Old Spice the most popular brand of men’s antiperspirant and bodywash products. Old Spice already had a YouTube channel where it posted TV ads to modest viewer numbers.
In February 2010 two short videos appeared on the Old Spice channel. These were different from previous ads — they featured Isaiah Mustafa, a handsome black actor with an attractive bass voice and an air of insouciant machismo. Suddenly Proctor and Gamble were targeting a female audience, presumably on the assumption that women buy the family’s showering products.
First came the “Did you know…?” advertisement.
The breakthrough — blogs and emails
Then the breakthrough hit — a series of quick scene and costume changes, a verbal rhythm (look over there, now back at me) and a silly punchline (“I’m on a horse.”) Since it was posted in February this advertisement has had more than 14 million views.
This one was called “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” After winning the 2010 Grand Prix for film (advertising) at Cannes, it was reposted on blogs and other web sites worldwide, the link shared via emails between friends.
The advertisement was launched in early February, the week after the Superbowl football match; this is a time of year when new advertising campaigns are launched (in the USA), analysed, critiqued and reported upon. Campaign Brief magazine claimed Old Spice had become the best-selling product in its category (in the USA).
A similar ad appeared on YouTube on 29 June and again was picked up by bloggers and social media users.
Going all the way — individual attention
That’s when things really got hot. Mainstream media personalities started mentioning the ads, in their regular gigs and via social media like Twitter. Popular online news outlets like the Huffington Post picked up the story. And two weeks later, on 12 July, Old Spice Guy started talking back directly to his fans.
The advertising agency’s creative director, Iain Tait, took a strategic approach to deciding when, how — and to whom — the video responses would be created:
“One of the unique things taking place in the studio is we have a team of social media people, we have the Old Spice community manager, we have a social media strategist, a couple of technical people, and a producer. And we’ve built an application that scans the Internet looking for mentions and allows us to look at the influence of those people and also what they’ve said. They’re working in collaboration with the creative team that are there to pick out the messages that: 1. Have creative opportunity to produce amazing content; or 2. Have the ability to then embed themselves in an interesting or virally-relevant community.”
The team chose its targets well, even winning broad approval from the notoriously hard-to-please 4Chan online community.
On 13 July a team of video production specialists and a group of social media experts wrote, filmed, edited and published 87 personalised responses to commenters at Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Digg and other social web sites.
Old Spice Guy even delivered a marriage proposal (which was accepted).
During that week creative director Iain Tait commented:
“One thing you can sense if you’re lucky enough to be there in the studio is that they’re all having such fun doing this thing. Isaiah is loving it. Everyone who is writing it is loving it. The social media guys are loving it. And that really shines through…
“It’s a really strange thing, but that sense that people are having fun actually manages to transmit itself through the Internet. People gravitate toward things that feel like they’re being done by people who love it. That sense that everyone involved with this is loving it is a huge factor in why this is so successful.”
The end, and the aftermath
In total they shot over 150 videos in three days that week. By 15 July a visibly exhausted Old Spice Guy had hung up his towel and retired.
It’s probably just as well he did retire — after all, who wants to live in a world without bottlenose dolphins?
There have been several spoofs, video responses and imitators, of varying degrees of cleverness and sophistication.
My favorite thus far is the version produced by the Harold B Lee Library at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA. Starring the “New Spice Guy,” it’s called Study like a scholar, scholar (found via Elizabeth Bear).
Of course, in the online world very little is actually original. Old Spice Guy had already said a few words about libraries.
Keep an eye out for Isaiah Mustafa: he’s an actor who knows he’s onto a good thing. He’s also a Batman fan who named his daughter for a character in the Spiderman comics and who is devoted to his girlfriend.
What it all meant
Two lessons.
First, this particular advertising campaign was part of a broader, long-term marketing strategy for Old Spice (see the Fast Company article mentioned above). Proctor and Gamble have spent most of this decade looking for ways to improve Old Spice sales.
The longer-term campaign was already having some effect — Forbes magazine reported that a Chicago market research firm had found Old Spice body wash sales were up 16.7 per cent in the year ending 13 June 2010. It remains to be seen whether the July 2010 hype makes a difference to their overall sales figures.
Second, don’t be fooled by the ‘social media’ element. This was no Cluetrain Manifesto “markets are conversations” concept put into action. Rather, it was an old-fashioned broadcast advertising campaign. Proctor and Gamble had a product to sell, and their advertising agency set about creating a market demand for that product. Interaction between individual customers (or potential customers) and the manufacturer was non-existent.
Individuals did interact with the advertising agency, but it was within strictly defined terms: the individuals blogged, tweeted or otherwise wrote about the advertisements. These blogs, tweets etc were published to the world at large. The ad agency selected a tiny proportion of these messages for a personalised response. The consumers had no input about product design, contents or production; the company learned nothing about the factors that influence a person’s choice of bodywash.
