by Rob Sears.
By now most people have seen one or more of the non-sequitur Old Spice ads featuring spokesman Isaiah Mustafa. These ads brought us such gems as:
"Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse."
The ads are the brainchild of American marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy, who also launched a social media campaign to compliment the broadcast spots. For the social media portion, Mustafa responded to questions on Twitter and Facebook with a series of videos. Over the course of three days, they published 186 videos and generated over 23 million views.
In addition to many quotable lines and some movie deals for Mustafa, Mashable reported that sales of Old Spice products increased 107% during the course of the campaign. So from a number of standpoints, it was wildly successful.
Late yesterday, the creative team at Wieden + Kennedy were awarded an Emmy for their work. The same team also won an Emmy last year for a Super Bowl spot they made for Coca-Cola. What's notable about this particular award is how heavily it involved social media. While the broadcast spots themselves were enough to make one chuckle, it was the ongoing and humorous interactions with the audience that really drove the results in the end. The takeaway here is that fresh and interesting engagement with your target audience is a powerful marketing tool.
Congratulations to Wieden + Kennedy for their latest award. And in case you've read this whole entry without knowing what I'm talking about, here is one of the ads from the campaign:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE]
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