Integrated “free media”

Where it really works: Old Spice

Where it really doesn‟t: 1010 viral

Presented by Cait Hurley, Oct 2010

Old Spice

From seventies surfer to the man your man could smell

like:

“Wieden + Kennedy have set a standard marketing experts will admire

and follow in the years to come. This is the future of marketing“-Mashable

The ad

(“I’m on a horse” now a widely used phrase in SN status

conversations for humorous one upmanship)

TV ad campaign started the new

branding exercise

• Rebrand handled by Weiden + Kennedy

• “I‟m on a horse” ad shown on TV and online

• Original ad garnered 20 million hits on YouTube

• Then suddenly, two months in to the campaign it all went

a bit viral…

YouTube campaign

• Twitter account voiced in „authentic‟ Old Spice man‟s

voice started posting YouTube URL‟s

• Over the 2 days, 187 short „reply‟ virals recorded

• Each video replying to a comment to „Old Spice man‟

• Reply videos have garnered 79 million hits

Geeks adored it

• YouTube‟s traditionally awful, juvenile comments brimmed over with glee

• Cynical geeks 4Chan were won over

• A “Reddit” user asked OldSpice man to record an answerphone message – he did, and a „fan site‟ was created to download OldSpice man for your own answerphone. W+K did nothing technical/financial to facilitate this

immediate results of the campaign:

• Top of Digg

• Top of Reddit

• Trending topic on Twitter

• Inventor of Twitter tweets it

• @Coverage in mainstream news / tech news / industry news (we‟re now in the Times of India, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian and Metro in the UK).

• Twitter followers multiplied by 10

Market effects of whole campaign

• "Old Spice is now the number one male body wash and deodorant in both dollar and volume share," (July)– Old Spice spokesperson

• Total sales for Old Spice body wash (excluding Wal-Mart) were up 16.7%

• Sales increased 107% in the month of the social media campaign– SymphonyIRI Group

• “Our business is on fire,” : Old Spice Brand Manager James Moorehead

Free media elements used

• Ultra cool TV ads garnering comment online. For 1st

video responses, major comment sites trawled to write

funny reposts to commentary

• Twitter/ Facebook updates used to spread word of new

virals – high „hookability‟

• Actively sought to charm key communities:

• After initial responses, follow ups were written on the fly

to comments as they came in

After 186 videos…

How not to do it

• 1010: video “No Pressure” written by Richard Curtis

• Released 30th September on to YouTube

• Removed 30th September from YouTube

• Oh dear.

• Since then:– Video was recorded and re-loaded in to youTube within minutes

– 600+k views since then

– 6000 comments on YouTube

– Countless blog articles, relentlessly negative

– Official apologies from head of 1010 campaign

– Sony removed all 1010 logos from their websites and withdrew from the campaign

Not for the fainthearted:

This is a schoolchild being blown up by his teacher

They really didn‟t know

“What a fantastically bonkers time we had on the film shoot for our very own Richard Curtis-penned mini-movie last week. First we dressed up a load of friendly 10:10 volunteers as office workers and blew them up in West London. Then we took over Camden School for Girls (see article in local rag) and blew up some schoolchildren. Then we headed down to Tottenham Hotspurs' training ground and blew up some footballers (including even-taller-in-real-life Peter Crouch). And finally we went to a sound studio in Soho and blew up Gillian Anderson”

Email sent 21st September written by 1010 campaign figurehead, Franny Armstrong

Breakdown of the free media used

• Email hit 1 week before video released, to signed up

supporters of 1010

• Tweets from 1010 in the run up to release

• Plugging on 1010 Facebook page

• … the end result was that it certainly was a global hit, but

not one they could control

Takeouts from these two events

• Viral videos are potentially incredibly expensive, in cash

and reputation terms but also have that „pot of gold‟

excitement which should be tempered by rationalism!

• Regardless of which media you choose, you are not only

addressing your core audience, but a global one, of

potential supporters (it will include detractors)

• Tone is vital. What are you trying to achieve?

• Could the same effect be achieved using cheaper

media? Would a personal approach work better?

Quick workshop

• Group one

You have £5k

to spend on an

integrated

media not-for-

profit campaign

of your choice

• Group two

You have £5

million to spend

on the

integrated

media rebrand

of Clarks

Shoes1. Use your Top trump cards as a reference to create a coherent integrated

campaign

2. The Social Media Consultant from “Agency X” is available for advice – for

a fee!