In the world of campaigns, there is nothing better than earned media — free television and radio exposure
➡ Being an Incumbent Has Many Benefits
Thank you Old Spice. Not for reminding me that I should work on my abs. But for proving me right.
Right about what? That the wall between earned media and social media is nothing but thin air. It’s not editorial efforts on one side and grassroots actions on the other. There’s only one wall. Between success and failure. Between phenomenon and oblivion.
Thank you Wieden + Kennedy. Thank you Iain.
Simple-minded social media experts -i.e. douchebags- will repeat the oh-so-often heard rule of engaging the influencers -to death. It’s not enough. On how to have a presence on Facebook. It’s not enough. Social media itself is not enough. You need much more.
In order to leverage the “grassroot” voice for an advertising campaign, you need a blend of creatives, marketers, writers & techies. You need people who breathe the real-time web. You need people who know what they’re talking/writing about, what they’re analyzing -and fast-, who they’re targeting. You need a plan. And you need the trust of your client.
W+K PDX had it all. The result is nothing short of admirable.
Over 185 videos, the Old Spice Guy answered online messages of celebrities like Alyssa Milano or Ashton Kutcher. And while he talked to them -caressing their ego- he messaged the rest of us. Real-time.
social media guys [...] figured out the who and where, spotting the opportunities, pulling out the gems and putting them cleverly back into the world. [...] [T]ech guys [...] pulled together a super smart workflow system
➡ Responding to allegations of douchiness and congratulations to a great @oldspice team
It was one-to-one-to-many. But it didn’t stop there.
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
➡ The Team Who Made Old Spice Smell Good Again Reveals What’s Behind Mustafa’s Towel
He also talked directly to the rest of us. The ones who had a fun sense of creativity. The crazy ones who were willing to propose our girlfriend.
It’s not just responding to tweets, it’s looking at the environment right now.
➡ ibidem
He talked via requests taken on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and 4Chan. Yeah, on 4Chan, daring the ones who decided to send Justin Bieber to North Korea.
And he talked Geekery.
Geekery? W+K understood demographics & behaviors. Understood that social media channels are still influenced by early adopters. People who love technology so much that they’ll jump into the indescribable 140-character message board that Twitter is. People who will understand the answer Kevin Rose received.
People who, like me, will laugh hard at the answer 4Chan got.
People who will be crazy enough to remix the videos.
People who will share the love.
People who will put the story on top of social sharing sites Reddit and Digg. People who will trigger the huge surge the Old Spice Twitter account got -from 3,500 to 55,000 followers in one day. Triggering more spill over to Facebook -600,000 fans of the brand, I’d say 20,000 more since the campaign started. A spill over talked about in larger circles thanks to news outlets like the Telegraph or the New York Times.
People who will get the videos to top 6 million views on YouTube in 24 hours -a record.

➡ Old Spice’s Online Video Coup
People who reacted to the Old Spice Guy’s persona.
W+K understood what a Tummler -to use the old Yiddish word- really is.
It understood the true concept of engagement. And the work it required.
It understood that pulling the comments real-time, quickly spotting the right opportunities required the right skills. That processing this back to the writers for a rapid video shoot required the right team. That working that fast required the complete backing -bravura?- of the client.
It understood the demographics for the product it was promoting. The behavior and psychology of the target. The referrals that could follow.
W+K had a plan. An intention for its client. And massive amounts of coffee.
The wall is between success and failure. If brand awareness was the goal, social media really is part of earned media.
Thanks for the diamonds.
I’m going to exercise now.