It's not very often that a case study in the making captures attention. After the fact, the numbers can be staggering. But it takes a very special case of advertising, PR and social media marketing integration to garner excitement during the campaign.
And that's what Old Spice has done. This is a brilliant example in the making of true integration: a commercial integrated with a full-on, interactive social media campaign, interwoven as tightly as the strands of a Persian rug.
Strand 1: Wieden and Kennedy created this ad for Old Spice featuring actor and former NFL athlete Isaiah Mustafa:
The next ad kept the same cheeky tone and muscled star, with over 13 million YouTube views to date:
Strands 2-115: And then the brilliance happened. Interactivity happened. Instant gratification and personal interaction happened. If you send a Tweet to @oldspice, Mustafa will create a video responding to your Tweet with the same quirky, pseudo-macho humor that pervades the original ads, right from the shower set and complete with rippling abs.
Here are the videos he's made in just the last 90 minutes, including one to George Stephanopoulos:
In the last two days, he has created response videos to over 100 Twitter requests, including the Ellen Show, Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano, and plain old folks like Code177 asking random questions about how a dinosaur would respond to Old Spice.
The videos are going up as fast as they can be made--note how the most recent are spaced 15-30 minutes apart. I'd love to hear how the team was assembled and organized to attack what must be a fire hose of Tweets directed at the brand with alacrity and humor that stays true to the original commercials.
Among the 100+ videos, it's hard to pick a favorite, but I did love his response to Starbucks' Twee:
"You look cold. Would you like a cup of hot coffee?"
What did Old Spice do right?
- Captured the spirit of a mainstream ad campaign and made it internet-accessible
- Made the character interactive and responsive
- Made it about the interactivity, NOT about the product
- Responded immediately, humorously and prolifically to Twitter requests
- Kept a sense of humor
- Didn't try to sell anything
