The Social Media Marketing Blog: 07/01/2010

If you haven't followed the Old Spice phenomenon from this week, you've missed out. It's a great example of a really strong performing viral campaign that harkens back to some of the classics like Subservient Chicken, Shave Everywhere, and Tea Partay.

It started on on television earlier this year with the following Old Spice commercial, "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" (link for those of you in RSS readers):

(If you'd like to see how this was accomplished, Leo Laporte has a great interview with the agency.)

That commercial, first aired during the Super Bowl in early February, as of this week has garnered over 14 million views. And then the next commercial, "Old Spice: Questions", went up on YouTube:

Those ads are pretty funny to begin with and were passed around a good deal. But this week, Wieden + Kennedy, creators of the campaign for Procter & Gamble, took it to the next level. First, they began by promoting the latest video with a number of tweets, to ensure it was seen by many:

And then they fired a warning shot across the bow via the @OldSpice Twitter account, lest anyone question what they were up to:

And what happened next made all the difference between the past and the future of viral campaigns. They could have easily engaged people on Twitter all day long and continued to push for views of their existing videos. But what Old Spice did was head and shoulders (if I can use another P&G product reference in a bad pun) above anything I've personally seen before.

The marketers targeted a handful of influencers to kick off the process - Kevin Rose (founder of Digg), Ellen Degeneres, Ashton Kutcher, The Huffington Post and others. Questions were requested and collected on a number of platforms: Twitter, the Old Spice Facebook page, YouTube, Reddit, 4Chan, blogs and Yahoo, to name a few. And then, during the course of the day, the questions were answered in near-real time via custom-made YouTube videos like this one:

At the end of the day, there were over 80 video responses made. W+K's creative director Iain Tait describes how they did it in an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the process on Read Write Web via an interview by Marshall Kirkpatrick called How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made. Suffice it to say there was a high degree of coordination between the social media team and the creative/production team. Tait also discusses his view of influence in a Fast Company interview: The Team Who Made Old Spice Smell Good Again Reveals What's Behind Mustafa's Towel.

From what I can tell, the reasons it worked so well are summed up as follows:

Go where the people are
Choose your influencers wisely
Use a personalized response
Respond on a universally understood & sharable platform (like YouTube)
Use a real-time platform to reply and promote replies (like Twitter)
Have fun, engaging content

So, this sets the bar high for the next major viral hit. Do you have any idea what's going to make the next one work well?

Bonus content:

Get your voicemail customized by the Old Spice Man.
Take a look at one of the parodies inspired by the Old Spice Campaign, from the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University:

Labels: facebook, innovation, Marketing, social media, Twitter, Video, Viral

About Scott

For hi-res, click here

Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, he has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," "the best corporate social media lead on the planet," and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."

At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .

Books in which Scott or his work is featured:

The Social Media Strategist

Social Business by Design

Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

MicroMarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small

Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell and Live

Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

by David Meerman Scott

Twitterville
by Shel Israel

Six Pixels of Separation
by Mitch Joel

Monkeys with Typewriters
by Jemima Gibbons

Read This First
by Ron Ploof

World Wide Rave
by David Meerman Scott

Get Seen
by Steve Garfield

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott is on the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium

Scott has been named to the Advisory boards of Pivot, SavvyAuntie, Business Smart Tools, The Hive Awards,
Scott is a judge for the SAMMY Awards

Named one of iMedia's 25 Top Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators

Humongo occasionally does web work for me and designed this site

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Scott Monty Bio

Speaking Events

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.

Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views. My bio is available here and my headshots can be found here.