If you’re online and in marketing or social media, the odds are that in the last 24 hours you’ll have seen/heard about the new Old Spice social media campaign. In short, it’s really fantastic but if there’s one thing that sticks out, it’s the fact that it’s really simple in execution: basic monitoring of what people are saying, post creative and funny responses. It’s KISS.

If you haven’t seen the campaign, this Social Media Penguin post is a good intro and this tells how the Old Spice videos are made (and this is a decent read too). Read them or just dive in after the jump. Here’s the basic story with a few links to videos before we come back to the text: Old Spice Man (well his team) found tweets and interesting people online and sent them personalised videos, people spread these about and left comments on YouTube, Twitter and so on. Old Spice Man then sent them personal videos. Including actress Alyssa Milano:

Alyssa then got in on the gag by doing a video back in style – in a towel in her bathroom (after the Old Spice team had sent her flowers) – and she uses it to raise awareness of a charity.

And then we had the inevitable throwback (which is still funny) and also some fans creating an unofficial voicemail site:

And then we had the end – but the second last video is a belter when the daughter of the actor playing Old Spice Man gets in touch

And then, the end:

KISS

Now yes, clearly a lot of planning went into this and there was a team involved – not just for filming but for script writing – but at the end of the day, this was a concerted effort that was phenomenal. As Mashable puts it:

Wieden + Kennedy (full details of the team involved on the blog of Iain Tait) have set the standards all marketing experts will worship and follow in the years to come.

This is the future of marketing.

At the end of the day, here’s all this was (I don’t mean that as a negative but it’s a very simple concept, well executed):

1. The agencies got together and did it, mostly being left alone by the brand (mostly due to the time hell that would have been trying to get approval on all the scripts)
2. They started writing and filming
3. They put them online
4. They monitored online and adapted to what was being said
5. More filming and tweeting
6. Repeat from 3

To me what’s really clever is that this reaches males and females (females are still more likely to buy smelly stuff for men). It offends no one because it is quite funny and even if you don’t like one video, they are short enough that the next one that comes along you will probably like.

What’s the ROI on the Old Spice Campaign?

There’s posts about the stats generated and the buzz. And it will be interesting to see if this translates into sales – especially in the UK where it’s not the US-version of Old Spice that’s available. Also, should Old Spice have included a ‘buy it now’ link in the videos? Part of me thinks yes, but I know a lot of people out there would say that would be a step too far.

One question though: has it really been social media or just a digital stunt?

Lessons for companies and agencies over the Old Spice Campaign

• If you hire people, trust them to get on with it. If all these scripts had needed traditional approval, it would have ground to a halt.
• React quickly. Old Spice is now the benchmark and there will be more like it in future.
• Content is a winner, personalised content is the absolute winner.