The innovation of Marketing Leads to a Highly Successful Campaign for Old Spice

Taking the social media world by storm, the Old Spice team worked hard and it is paying off!  In a matter of 12 hours the creative team collaborated with the marketing team who also worked closely with social media experts and a tech team to produce 87 hilarious short videos.  By now I'm sure that you have at least seen the commercials on TV and if you spend any amount of time on Facebook or YouTube you have seen at least five of those videos.

A genius plan by the people at Old Spice was not ever intended to be this big.  The original commercial took a ton of planning, but was shot in one take.  The plan to create more commercials featuring the, self-proclaimed ridiculously handsome, Isaiah Mustafa was never even considered.  Following the popularity of the commercial on YouTube and around the world via many different social media channels a second commercial hit the broadcasting networks and once again the Internet.

So where did these funny, fast, real time response videos come from and how did they make them?  That is what happens when collaboration is done successfully.  The marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy of Portland, Oregon can be held accountable for the majority of the success that has come to Old Spice.  Bringing together a very creative team to produce the videos answering the inquiries from an array of influential social media icons.  The team analyzed information about who in social media is most influential and then targeted them and answered their posts in real time through the quick videos.

The randomness adds to the comedy of each piece and has impacted the appearance of Old Spice.  No longer is it just for men over 50, these videos are targeting a much younger population and are entertaining men and women alike.  This whole real time TV quality commercial concept is exceptionally new and quite risky.  The parent company of Old Spice, Procter and Gamble, really did give a huge amount of freedom to their marketing company.  Communication between the two was very limited, seeing the pace in which the videos were created.  It has been reported that this could have never occurred had P&G not had full trust in the product that Widen + Kennedy were going to produce.  The two companies have been working together for quite some time and Widen + Kennedy are responsible for the success of other large companies such as Nike, ESPN, Honda, and Converse.

So the take away here is to be creative in your marketing endeavors and take risks.  Utilizing social media for advertising is one thing, but to respond to social media in real time to generate content is a whole different world.  A world that we will, hopefully, be seeing a lot more of. 

Posted July 19, 2010 | Read all posts by Cayce Owens-Thrush