If you’ve been feeling lonely at home or bored at work in the past couple of days, you may have found solace in a recent ad campaign by Old Spice.
First made famous in a Super Bowl ad launched this year, Old Spice Man — the topless, überconfident ladies man selling you a new fragrance from Old Spice on your TV screen — has taken to the interactive world of social media. For the past two days, Old Spice Man has been responding to Tweets, Facebook posts and comments on reddit, Digg and Youtube with short, snappy (and rather funny) video messages.
But this isn’t just your average social media campaign promoting a particular product. It’s cheap, quick and efficient, and even though the campaign is now over, there is sure to be some aftershock. In fact, just last night a group of redditors put together a soundboard of Old Spice Man sayings so that people can have him step in as your voicemail greeting.
The campaign works so well because it is super-direct, nearly instantaneous viral marketing that costs next to nothing. Just consider the concept — one character standing in front of a shower all day, a few simple props, and a camera crew set up and ready to record, rip and respond to messages with a personalized video.
On the other end, consumers and people just looking for a laugh interact directly with the Old Spice Man, which instills a certain amount of trust and closeness with the company. Words like "trust" and "closeness" might sound like they belong in a Cosmo article about what makes a strong romantic relationship, but let’s face it — today, consumers don’t just want a good product, they want to know that the person selling to them cares.
What better way to show you care than with a studly half-nude man responding to something that you wrote only minutes ago?
OK, so not everyone is getting a personal response, and a lot of the responses are directed at celebrities. But, still, this campaign feels more grassroots, interactive and on the level of the consumer than most we’ve seen.
Could this be the next big wave in the future of online advertising? At this point, it’s certainly one of the most innovative ad campaigns in terms of maximum efficiency at minimal cost. One disadvantage for companies who follow suit with their own social media video campaign: The half-nude character has already been taken.
See Also:
- Facebook's New Social Ads Turn Your Friends Into Marketers
- Is Social Advertising an Oxymoron?
- Facebook Ads Make You the Star — And You May Not Know It
- Social Network Users Aren't Scared of Ads, Says Razorfish
- Motrin's Mommy Headache: A Lesson in Social Media Experimentation
- Gaming the System: How Marketers Rig the Social Media Machine
- Selling Ads on Facebook Is a Tempting but Risky Business
- VW Social Media Campaign Delivers One-Two Punch
