We’ve all seen (and laughed like crazy at) Old Spice’s hilarious commercials. Isaiah Mustafah has transformed from an unknown struggling actor into the manly man that every male strives to be, and every female strives to have. And most importantly, in doing so, he has helped to fortify Old Spice’s brand image, and to amplify their sales to new and exciting sales.
A small hike in sales is expected after a successful campaign launch. Throughout the world of marketing, it is seen all the time. However, a 55% sales increase over a three-month period, as was recently seen by Old Spice, is rather spectacular. In fact, it was so remarkable that the Old Spice team made a critical decision – to expand the campaign.
They could have spent millions on launching more and more of these funny commercials, as is typically seen in the advertising industry. Think about it, how many E*Trade baby commercials are there now? Don’t get us wrong – they are awesome commercials, I for one search for them online rather regularly. However, Old Spice had a different idea. They turned their “Smell Like a Man, Man” into a real person, with an interactive social media campaign.
Old Spice began using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at an enormous depth. This campaign allowed fans and followers to “Talk to OS Guy” – they could ask questions and post requests on either social media outlet. Each selected post received a personal YouTube-hosted video reply, directly from Mustafah himself.
Was it a success? Unlike some campaigns, the answer here is indisputable. On Twitter, Old Spice has over 95,000 followers; on Facebook, over 720,000 fans. What inspired all of these people to fan and follow a deodorant brand? The absolute hilarity of Mustafah’s responses. One Twitter user asked Mustafah to propose to his girlfriend for him. Mustafah did not hesitate to prepare a romantic (though manly) proposal, complete with candles. In response to a political question from George Stephanopoulous, Mustafah suggested that Obama should always wear Old Spice, and should only be seen in a white towel, in order to draw more supporters. When he noticed that he had attracted the attention of Alyssa Milano, he professed her love to her (in the manliest way) with a bouquet of flowers, and a handwritten letter.
The attention grew. And grew. And grew. Until finally Old Spice discontinued the personalized videos, but continued hilarious one-liner tweets and statuses from the Old Spice Guy himself. And the attraction continues.
The result: 107% increase in sales over the past month. What does Serendipit say about this? Well, awesome social media campaign Old Spice. We’re impressed. And, for those of you who read our previous post, What Would You Score Facebook…, an interesting relation can be seen. It looks like Facebook’s low consumer satisfaction results aren’t stopping Old Spice. How will you help your business overcome social media challenges?
