Old Spice have done it again. They’re back with a vengeance to further leverage their genius and award-winning campaign from earlier this year. This time in a way that not only combines great writing, a huge PR idea and advertising savvy but also uses social media as a two-way channel more effectively than anything before.
If you tweet a question to @oldspice, the response will be via a personalised video response from American actor and ex-NFL athlete Isaiah Mustafa (who appeared in the original commercials). For example, replying to @Starbucks’ that he’s cold and may need some coffee, the reply came that he keeps warm by putting his head in boiling water with pasta in his mouth.
@oldspice is replying to everyone from Hollywood celebrities to multi-national corporations to media agencies to performing proposals for ‘regular people’. The amazing thing about these videos is how fast they are churning them out. The Starbucks tweet was replied to, a mere two hours after the original tweet was posted.
This highly original and extremely well executed campaign will surely set a benchmark for not only what sort of multi-platformed, ‘viral marketing’-esque campaigns ad agencies will seek to provide for clients in the future, but will also set a benchmark for what companies will expect from their ad agency. This campaign has proven the worth of a great ad campaign and the work of a great advertising agency in the digital age, more than almost any before it. Practically overnight the ‘Old Spice’ brand has transformed it’s public perception. A few months ago, seeing an ‘Old Spice’ shower gel at a guy’s house might have indicated that he was a little traditional or a little too influenced by his ‘Father’, but now it has connotations with being hip, funny and cutting-edge. The ad world is changing right before our eyes, thanks to Wieden + Kennedy’s genius campaign.
Check out some of the video responses below:
Huffington Post
The Ellen Show
Perez Hilton
“The Proposal”
Ashton Kutcher
Starbucks
Not that getting strangers to ask you questions and replying with a deadpan yet earnest and usually hilarious response, is an entirely new concept (Sydney has been partaking for months, we’re looking at you JTL), but we can’t say we’re not waiting at the edge of our seats for a response…
