experience matters

Jeana Anderson | Critical Mass Chicago

The social media marketer’s dream came true over at Old Spice over the past two days. The brand’s latest campaign by Wieden + Kennedy was translated into real-time, branded video responses to social media fans and followers. If you weren’t watching along in awe with me, or if you ignored all social media in general, you may have missed it. If that’s the case, here’s a recap:

The campaign developed originally for TV is over-the-top masculine, peppered with hyperbole stated as hilarious science. When combined with the nearly perfect casting of the ruggedly attractive Isaiah Mustafa, who is every woman’s kryptonite and every man’s idol, viral sharing of these videos was imminent. A phrase from one of the earliest ads exemplifies the tone of the entire campaign: “Did you know that women prefer Old Spice for their men one bajillion times more than lady-scented body washes?”

Riding the horse of popularity associated with the ironic campaign, Mustafa holed up in what appeared to be a bathroom, setting out to thank influencers (read: celebrities and bloggers with a large following) including Ellen Degeneres, Perez Hilton, and The Chicago Blackhawks. He also answered questions from fans–all in the exaggerated tone of the original campaign. Memorable moments from the two day real-time YouTube video onslaught included the spokesperson pausing to facilitate a fan’s proposal to his girlfriend, shooting down an offer for coffee from @Starbucks and putting to rest rumors that he was masking the voice of a nerd. In slightly over 24 hours since the marriage proposal video was posted on YouTube, it has been viewed 269,203 times and counting.

Each video in the series reeks of manly, unabashed confidence, and based on a search of Social Mention, we are eating it up: the brand is mentioned in social media every 39 seconds.

Aside from its novelty, uniqueness and incredibly sharable nature, there were some strong points to this real-time-video-production-marathon that made it even more extraordinary (and more viral) than the original. Or as the Old Spice Man may put it, virally viral videos that were viraler than the viral originals.

1. The fans are speaking the @oldspice language. Sarcastic questions, such as “Do you take calls from fans or just calls from the wild?” are being slow-pitched to Mustafa, making it easy for Old Spice and its team of writers to create more content to share and extend the campaign’s reach.

2. The speed at which these videos were released was staggering. Over two days, 184 videos were created in this production bender, that’s a little under 4 videos produced and posted every hour, assuming that this team isn’t sleeping, which is hard to say based on Mustafa’s unwavering strength even up to the very last video.

3. Even though the video production concluded, the social fans and followers gained will be sustainable. The tone of Old Spice’s Community Moderator matches that of the campaign perfectly. The increased number of fans and community engagement will hold steady as long as the moderator shares content aligned with the campaign that inspires laughter and engagement.

Old Spice, we salute your manly video assault on our senses of humor. These videos truly make for an extraordinary experience. I want to end this post with a question to the Old Space Man just in case he decides to make one more video: just how does that towel stay up?

Jeana is a Community Moderator for Nissan Cube and Nissan Juke, out of the Chicago office.