Much has been made of the recent social media campaign launched by Old Spice and delivered by the face of their brand, Isaiah Mustafa. The attention is well deserved and the reaction from industry professionals, as well as the public, is astounding. However, one seemingly small but easily intricate part of this campaign’s success came from behind the scenes. It’s the foundation of traditional media that took this campaign from kind of cool to cornerstone social media production in just a couple of months.
Let’s break down what it took to achieve the level of success @oldspice was able to reach.
Copywriting: Sure, the actor Isaiah Mustafa might be a naturally clever man. However, you can bet your bottom dollar his response videos were well crafted pieces of copywriting. Mustafa originally appeared on a broadcast television commercial… via copywriting. When Old Spice took on the task of taking this campaign social with online response videos, he had to stay in character and maintain the appearance he portrayed in the original commercial. There’s your copywriting role.
Production: This one won’t take long to explain but let’s see if I can drag it out. Did you watch those videos? They didn’t look like they were shot on your Flip Mino did they? Production played a huge roll in the success of this campaign.
Isaiah Mustafa: Hey, I am certainly not one to knock raw, transparent, “this is me uncut” type videos. That’s one of the most fundamental parts of social media. I advise this type of social media engagement and I love it! But, this Old Spice campaign was definitely not that. Isaiah was a paid actor who brought this campaign to life.
I could probably elaborate further on the entire campaign, but I think the three things listed explain why this campaign was genius in combining social media with traditional advertising. When social media first took off, we all knew transparency was key, thus we kind of overlooked production for raw footage. Some have regarded traditional advertising and marketing as talking “at” consumers while social media is talking “with” them. While that generalization may have some merit, the Old Spice campaign showed that you can include traditional advertising and still engage customers in a way that gives people a reason to talk about your brand.
As a social media and copywriting man, this was the best use of social media I have seen thus far in the marketing world. What about you? Did you it wow or inspire you? What did you like or dislike?
And of course, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t leave you a few examples in case you’ve been hiding under a rock. Enjoy.
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