The Lesson & The Caution of the Old Spice Campaign
The hilarious Old Spice campaign from 2 weeks ago rightfully caused a viral stir. The project was funny and well-executed. Whether or not the brand’s sales rise remains to be seen, but my guess is that, to most marketers, it won’t matter: they’ll press their agencies to “do something as cool as the Old Spice campaign” whether it passes the ROI test or not.
Two things occured to me during the campaign.
#1 was that consumers LOVED the fact that the brand’s spokesman interacted with them directly. This “1:1:many” approach has long been touted as one of the key benefits of Social Media Marketing, and it was writ large via Old Spice. I say “1:1:many” to denote that the interactions with the spokesman were 1:1, but the dialogue was performed in public, thus the “many” (and thus, the outsized credit attributed to the responses).
This “customization as performance” model is sure to strike many as the Next Big Thing in Marketing, despite the fact that it’s been done in smallball fashion via the public-facing Customer Service efforts of brands like Comcast, Dell, etc.
#2 was a caution: what happens in public can be derailed in public.
As I tweeted about during the campaign, actress Alyssa Milano’s public challenge to Old Spice to donate $100K to Gulf Cleanup efforts went unanswered. The challenge was covered in high-profile outlets like the Huffington Post, and still went unanswered… To date, no one seems very interested in helping Ms. Milano’s challenge go viral, but, one can easily imagine how a fun campaign like Old Spice’s could get caught up in an unforseen imbroglio that destroyed all that newfound goodwill!
Welcome to the future. It won’t always smell as good as Old Spice.
Posted on: July 26, 2010 at 1:10 pm By Todd Defren
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Todd,
I think your post is spot on and the proof of it’s success will be whether the campaign results in increased sales going forward. I originally praised the campaign in a post, and then in a second post raised the question of whether they would be able to convert fans and followers into customers. In my latest post I point out that they have done little to keep their fans and followers engaged and that they might not have been prepared for the campaign’s success, or they may not have fully thought out their social media campaign.
The genius of the campaign as you point out was the 1:1 conversations viewed by millions. As other agencies think about similar campaigns, they should learn the lessons of this campaign and think about the long term opportunities and not just short term accolades.
Thanks for your post.
Hi Todd:
I’d caution against judging the effectiveness of this campaign solely by immediate, over-the-counter sales. I’m not quite sure you’d want all of your PR or social media campaigns judged only on their instant impact in the sales cycle.
The campaign seems to have created a lot of brand awareness for Old Spice and has given a new sheen to a tired, old brand. As one of my smarter colleagues put it: “Until this campaign, Old Spice was the brand that your dad wore.” She also noted that creating a spike in sales – even through mass TV advertising – is very difficult.
I only meant to imply that Sales would be one metric to review, not the only one.
I LIKED the campaign!
I know you did.
Why does everyone want to rip this campaign… I have seen few and far between posts about how brilliant this is… I guess its easier to be a critic. I think the tweet maybe being ignored for a few reason.
#1 its not something these guys can just approve.
When was the last time you saw an agency have the authority to give cash to a cause without client approval?
How long would that process normally take?
#2 Isn’t P&G already helping the gulf!
Do we really think the public is this picky? Seriously?
Why would a brand doing nothing wrong, that has nothing to do with an unrelated issue suddenly loose credibility? Because they don’t respond to a call to action from one tweet? I hope the public is smarter than that!
Finally what makes the Huffington Post high profile?
I love the ad campaign… If nestle did something like this I could see it going sideways maybe… but some things should just be ignored during a promotional push. I’d say a distraction like that MIGHT be one… depending.
Hi Mike – I did not rip the campaign, I praised it, and then simply moved on to a) call out the fact that “customization-as-performance” (i.e., responding in near real-time to individual users) would surely be on the rise now, and, b) to suggest that such approaches have inherent dangers. Sorry if you preferred a puff piece? (p.s. The Huffington Post is the #1 most-read blog in the world, with daily uniques rivaling the NYTimes and WSJ – http://j.mp/6WvQma – so umm, yea, that’s pretty “high profile!”)
I agree that answering the call re: the Gulf would have been problematic at best, but the public doesn’t give a rat’s ass about that, if they get charged up on an issue. Just something to be wary of, for marketers considering similar approaches.
My lament on the Huffington Post deals with the quantity of articles posted… that site moves really fast. If it doesn’t get in syndication the story often dies, quickly. I agree I think that anytime you have real time response things can go wrong. Having an engagement strategy (flow chart) built around clear objectives is the only way to go. I think the Marketing team had one in place… just a guess.
Fun post! And I agree.
But props to the Old Spice PR folks for choosing to avoid answering; that single question could have turned into a messy situation if it was handled poorly.
I’ve seen some conflicting reports on whether or not it worked (from a ROI perspective).
As far as I can tell, most of the (mis?)information is coming from this article:
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/despite-enormous-popularity-old-spice-guy-not-helping-sales–1403
The post contains an “update” from Old Spice that seems to not-so-directly disagree with the reported 7% sales drop, but I’m not sure anybody actually read it. The article also seems to focus on body wash sales alone, which I think is a mistake. While the body wash is a surface focus, the real meat of this campaign is in general brand awareness.
Meanwhile, PR Week reported a couple days earlier that sales were up 107%:
http://www.prweekus.com/old-spice-goes-beyond-hot-man-in-towel-approach-to-boost-sales/article/175111/
It probably is too early to make either case, but I tend to believe the 107% increase over the 7% decrease. This was an amazing campaign. They loaded the bases with their great TV commercials, and then hit the grand slam with this idea. Can’t wait to see more from Old Spice (or to see if Axe comes up with a good retaliation).
I know I went out and bought old spice… but it is the brand I wear and I was running out… so not sure if it made a huge dent.