Old Spice hits the spot
Here’s a fascinating example of how the advertising world can get itself bang up to date through the use of social media. Procter and Gamble, not on the whole known for a relaxed attitude about how its brands are covered in the media, decided for once to go to the opposite extreme, allowing marketers for its Old Spice brand to try a novel and potentially risky approach.
The brand collaborated with its marketing agency, getting together a team of creatives, writers and tech geeks and working with an actor to create video commercials and release them on the Internet in real time (via Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and blogs). The spots were quick to do – basically a few seconds around some comedic theme. They were also created from comments about the brand gathered by two social media experts, who were essential elements of the team.
Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy, explains: “We’re looking at who’s written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web…in real time.”
And apparently it worked. At the end of the first day the clips had been viewed four million times, and the team churned out another bunch the following day.
More details here.
