Old Spice and Twitter: getting social media right
Two case studies I predict you’ll be reading about a lot over the next couple of years: how Old Spice got social marketing right and how Twitter got introducing commerce right.
Old Spice’s ‘the man your man could smell like’, made by Wieden & Kennedy Portland, was already getting viral marketing pretty right by dint of producing an ad that was funny and had broad appeal (you could laugh at it regardless of whether the Old Spice brand had bad 1980s connotations or not). A great combination of the right creative execution, which saw it win the Cannes Lions Grand Prix last month, and good use of viral marketing. Not only that, it really ties in with the Old Spice brand values.
But things just got a whole lot more interesting. Via a sponsored tweet on Twitter and as well as Facebook and Yahoo! Answers, Old Spice is making a series of bespoke videos and posting them on YouTube. The campaign is a combination of utterly daft and completely brilliant – I especially enjoyed the video addressed to the Huffington Post…
as well as this “holy shh asterisk t” get well video.
Understandably, the campaign has been an instant hit. And it has caught the eye of some of Twitter’s biggest names, including founder @biz and @starbucks – who needs to spend millions on airtime, eh?
But as well as being an example of social media that other brands will be drooling over with envy, I’m interested in how well Twitter’s sponsored tweets are going down with users.
People become incredibly precious about websites they use a lot and once they’re used to a site free of ads and clutter, it’s incredibly hard to introduce changes – just ask Facebook.
But so far, Twitter really seems to be getting it right. These sponsored links appear so unobtrusively and yet they seem to be effective, so far, at getting people to talk about the brand in quite a natural way. Can marketers keep the good work up?
Read more on Brand Republic – Old Spice targets Twitter generation
All Comments
Funny stuff no doubt. But how do you explain away a 7% drop in sales over the time the campaign has been running?
Some are calling the campaign the most successful viral campaign ever. Why? Well in just a few short weeks the campaign can claim
Nearly 90,000 followers on Twitter, including a host of celebrities.
100 million views and 100,000 subscribers on YouTube
666,000 fans on Facebook, but is that success if the goal of the campaaign is increased sales?
Apparently not as today, news breaks that Old Spice sales have dropped 7% since the campaign started and critics are out in force talking about how viral marketing doesn’t equate to sales.
Heather Buckley
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