"Six Digital Trends To Watch" by Steve Rubel and David Armano
What To Take Away From the 'Old Spice Guy' Social Network Marketing Campaign
On February 4th, 2010, a charismatic manly man star was born. His name, Isaiah Mustafa, a 36 year old former Seattle Seahawks receiver, who would launch into international fame just after Super Bowl Sunday, as the half naked, towel wearing, ladies man, becoming the new Old Spice Guy. His first commercial "Feb 4th, 2010 - Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" would rack up 3.5 million YouTube views in 2 weeks, and now present day, has over 15 million views.
"I just tried to create this lovable, oblivious [buffoon], who's a little bit smug," said Mustafa in a February interview with the LA Times. (Noting the LA times says he didn't really use the word "buffoon")
The first Old Spice video with Mustafa was shot in just 3 days, with 57 takes, and minimal special effects, by a team of 35 people, who worked 12 hours a day on the set.
Months later, following a plug from Oprah, and in the weeks leading up to the July 14th blitz, the Old Spice marketing team fabulously architected what would become a three-day social networking campaign effort that would excite social media fans, celebrities, and bloggers alike, launching Mustafa (pitching his manly Old Spice Red Zone After Hours Body Wash) into becoming a bona fide viral internet sensation.
From a marketing perspective, the Old Spice campaign, produced by Wieden + Kennedy for Proctor & Gamble, not only worked to re-ignite Old Spice brand awareness with an instantaneous appeal, but the execution of the campaign created a rapid social network buzz, as celebrities and everyday people began talking it up, while inspiring bloggers to cover the story, leading to a perfect storm of viral media coverage and publicity.
Although there is some debate about how impactful the three-day video campaign (combined with five months of post Super Bowl publicity) really was to lift Old Spice brand sales, just over a week since the Old Spice Guy filmed his YouTube goodbye, Mustafa's interactive Old Spice Guy video blitz is now considered to be one of the most successful viral video campaigns ever made.
Now marketers everywhere are thinking about how to duplicate the social network strategy for their own brands. With minimal costs to produce the episodic response videos, while utilizing the free leverage of millions of social networking eyes, Old Spice hit a grand slam.
The three-day Old Spice viral campaign numbers tell an impressive story. Between July 14th to July 16th, the Old Spice Guy marketing team filmed and uploaded over 180 video responses to YouTube. All together, the campaign has now resulted in an astounding 36+ million YouTube views, while Old Spice now boasts 91,000 followers on Twitter, and over 680,000 Facebook fans.
Even the U.S. government took note of the Old Spice viral campaign success, and has worked to identify the campaign's formula for success. A Washington Post blog "Adapting Old Spice Success to Government" cites four criteria government agencies can learn from the ads, which include: Speed, Planning, Talent and Trust.
After the hype fades, and we can easily reference over 180 Old Spice Guy videos on the Old Spice YouTube Channel for years to come, referencing images and soundbites that may last a lifetime, what can marketing savvy companies learn from the Old Spice Guy campaign? And, how can companies implement similar social network viral marketing techniques to grow their own business?
Well, there is much to learn, but here's the down and dirty.
The Old Spice videos quickly demonstrated to the marketing world how a creative, personable, and clever episodic video content marketing campaign, starring a charismatic, good looking, and confident sweet talker, interacting with multiple social networks in real time, could ignite a major internet sensation.
Yet, the Old Spice marketing team took the production and creative process several steps further, by capitalizing on the instantaneous wave of thousands of social media comments, from people who were quickly responding to the Old Spice Guy videos. Combined with marketing talent and writers on the set, working to quickly craft scripts for the video responses, the filming of new Old Spice Guy responses averaged 7 minutes for each video.
All said and done, the goal of such an impressive marketing effort is to of course, drive product sales. So just how did Old Spice product sales do? According to Time, "Red Zone After Hours body wash sales have fallen seven percent, despite the ads". But as Brand Channel points out, Media too Quick to Label Old Spice Man a Failure, "the 7% decline is taken out of context", and Old Spice body wash sales are up 55% in the last three months, and the "brand's products" are up a whopping 107% in the last month alone.
Whatever the true sales impact of the Old Spice Guy viral campaign turn out to be (and it will become clear soon enough), all good things come to and end, but will often live on in memory. Even though Mustafa's July 16th goodbye video has received over 3.2 million views so far, the Old Spice Guy campaign is still widely talked about, written about, and of course, watched, re-watched, and analyzed. And it will likely be for years to come.
Post internet viral success, Isaiah Mustafa, the handsome swagger talking Old Spice Guy has signed on to secure a talent deal with NBC, and is likely headed for even more success. Meanwhile, 36 million YouTube views later, Old Spice, the iconic 73-year-old product brand, may turn out to be just as timely and relevant as ever, while the 2010 Old Spice Guy campaign will now go down in history, being remembered as pioneering, and legendary.
BP Coffee Spill Video Goes Viral
Uploaded to YouTube on June 9th, the UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre) Comedy "BP Spills Coffee" video that pokes fun at the BP corporate culture facing a catastrophic coffee spill, is quickly turning into a YouTube sensation.
Been tracking this video since I first learned about it on Thursday, when it had nearly 8,000 views.
In just three days, the UCB video now has over 2.5 million views.
Here's the video:
On July 24th, 2009, I wrote about the JK Wedding Dance video that exploded into the mainstream, and became a viral phenomenon. Also noted some other videos that went viral in a big way. Nearly a year later, the JK Wedding Dance video has over 51 million views.
Not ready to project how far the BP Spills Coffee video will rise in views, but I'll be watching, and updating the rise in YouTube views (below) if they continue to be significant.
BP Spills Coffee 'Views' Progress:
June 10th at 8AM - 8,000 views
June 10th at 11:45PM - 221,000 views
June 11th at 1:45AM - 349,000 views
June 11th at 7:30AM - 615,000 views
June 11th at 10:30PM - 1,282,000 views
June 12th at 12:30PM - 1,995,000 views
June 13th at 11AM - 2,557,000 views
June 13th at 10:30PM - 2,756,000 views
June 14th at 8:15AM - 3,000,000 views
The ABC's of Startup Marketing by Mike Volpe of Hubspot
How to Post Online Content That Provides Value to Others
Lately, I've zeroed in on how there are a lot of people on the social web, who are here because it's the next big thing, but aren't really sure what to do next. The range of personalities and online purpose of each person varies of course, but the common denominator is, many of us share this online space together.
Some people are perfectly happy posting infrequent status updates, while others like to play Mafia Wars or Farmville daily on Facebook. And that's great. On the other end, there are many people who are finding their own way online, on their own time, watching, observing, and looking to learn from others. And yes, there are others who are reluctantly resentful to be a part of this cultural internet phenomenon that they still don't get, but their friends do. In time, maybe they will come to appreciate this brave new world. Or not.
Below are some thoughts I wanted to share, for anyone who might be wondering what to do next, and how to better navigate this online opportunity into a larger purpose, one that their friends and followers will find interesting and valuable.
Let's Start With Status Updates:
Essentially, when someone posts a status update to the web, whether through Facebook (What's on your mind?), Twitter (What's happening?) or a blog (or other site), they are literally 'publishing' their thoughts for the online world to review and digest. Status updating is a form of "microblogging", and this means you are technically blogging, but in short form. The now traditional approach to status updates involves a quick burst of writing a thought along the lines of, "Going to get married this weekend, can't wait!", or "Getting my marriage license today. It's almost official". Everyone knows how to status update, but not everyone takes full advantage of the opportunity to be creative, or share interesting content. Let me explain further.
Building Your Stream:
When posting on Facebook or Twitter (I use these two platforms as examples because they are most relevant today), you can be a casual user, or a user with a purpose. In 2010, the lasting trend (at least for this era) is to "share" content, by posting new, and valuable updates to your online "stream". The stream, (which is all the content you've posted, that can be referenced on anyone's profile page) becomes a reflection of who you are, and what interests you. For career minded folk, maybe think of your stream as a new form of career resume. I'd go as far to say, the stream is now "the new resume", but not enough employers have figured this out yet. The blog that you are reading right now, is on what I call, my "blog lifestream". It is my home site, and a place where I openly write about my thoughts on what I feel are interesting and emerging trends or topics of the times. Your stream is one of the most important places to build an online history. A place for others to reference, utilize, or just enjoy your content.
How to Post Interesting Content: A Brief Overview
Whether anyone will classify my online approach as interesting is entirely up to the individual reader, but I will confess, my online persona is almost entirely dedicated to driving content and insights to the social web, that are fresh, interesting, relevant and thought provoking. Sometimes I post controversial news stories, but mostly go for what's breaking in the news each week, and ride out the story. I use status updates on Facebook and Twitter to tell my perspective of a story, including links to articles on many subjects.
Next... Here is some food for thought, coming from a daily social web user, who is a half way decent writer. You may or may not find this useful, but this is my experience, and my intent is to be helpful.
A.) First. How Personal Should We Get Online? Obviously get as personal as you want, but from experience, my two cents on the matter is, probably best to share just enough personal info online, but not too much. There is a fine line to walk here, and with some practice, you'll learn what feels right. Rule of thumb is, if you don't want the world to know about it, don't post to it to the web. Within reason, sharing personal stuff online is important. Those who share this space with you want to know more about you, and what you are really about. What are your interests? What makes you tick? What is your opinion on certain topics? Personality sells itself, when is genuine, real and honest.
B.) Photo Uploads: There are endless photos uploaded everyday to the web. Many of these photos are of mundane images, like a plate of food, the dog laying on the couch, or trees in a forest. And that's fine. When taking pictures, I look for interesting photogenic opportunities, and have pursued this approach for a long time. I want to upload pictures that make people go "cool", or "wow", over and over again. So I look for great scenery, interesting buildings, sunsets, disaster zones, tea party protests, or just unique images that most people won't see everyday. Also. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about avatar marketing. You know what an avatar is, right, as it relates to the social web? If not, it's that little picture box on Facebook or Twitter where you get to designate what you want your profile picture to be. Not to expand too much on avatar marketing, but it's not a bad thing to change that avatar picture every so often, and don't be too afraid to post interesting pictures of yourself, or life around you. The goal is to be real, be who you are, and again, show off a little personality along the way.
C.) How many times a day should you post online? As many as you want of course, but my rule of thumb is, a maximum 4 to 6 times any given day on Facebook, and depending on the day or what news is breaking, 6 to 12 times on Twitter. You don't want to burn out your friends, followers, or become irrelevant with endless content posting, and you'll want to stay as fresh as possible for delivering new content when desired. Through relentless practice, I've learned the easy way, and the hard way about how often one should post online.
D.) How to find and post interesting content: You literally have much of the whole world at your fingertips with the internet. Finding content is easy. The challenging part is finding content others will find valuable. But there are ways to do it. For example:
- Scan news site each day, or search the web for key phrases that interest you, and then gives us a link us to stories that you think are important. Tell us why it is important. Why should we click on that link?
- Post videos of funny, timely, educational, or important subjects. Why should we watch it? Maybe explain to us in a sentence or two on your status update what the value is for us.
- Offer some insightful commentary on a topic, or trend. Don't be scared, give it a try. It may be liberating, and useful to others.
E.) But what if you don't think you write very well?: So improve. The internet is here to stay, and it's only going to become a larger movement in most of our lives, both in career, and personally. If you are not great at writing, but want to improve, now is the time to buckle down, and improve your style. Take a class, do a google search on grammar and spelling rules, or buy a book on how to write better. Writing is about communication, and how you write is an important reflection of.who you are, and how you can interpret the world around you.
Important to note: To get better at writing, there are two key factors to keep in mind. Practice, practice and practice with your writing, and read, read, read. The more you read, the more you can observe other people's style, learn new words, or remember words you haven't used in a long time. Creative, informative or purposeful writing can make the social web experience more interesting for you, and maybe inspire others to learn something along the way.
F.) In Business, the Online Goal is "Influence": If you are on the social web to have fun, and play some games, or engage in conversation, knock yourself out. But if you are here to strengthen your career, or grow a business, you want to build influence, and "trust capital". In the real world of online marketing and networking, influence shows up in several ways. Any measurement of influence can be subjective of course, but the best way to build online influence is to provide regular, credible, interesting content that is valuable to others. And even more important, is how you deliver that content, with what voice you use, or how you market it.
This post was meant to be a quick briefer, and is by all means not comprehensive. Maybe this online sharing world isn't for everyone, and once again, that's fine. But if it is, and you are sitting back waiting for your moment, maybe it's time to think about seizing this opportunity. Because it is an opportunity, and the time is now.
Life is short. Enjoy.
Why Facebook is the New Business Card
Admittedly, sometimes I hit and miss when trying to identify emerging trends.
About a year and a half ago, I didn't see Facebook as business friendly. Saw it as an up and coming social networking site, and a place to connect with family and friends, while sharing interesting tidbits and vacation photos. But these days, my tune on Facebook as a relationship building business site is quickly changing.
Today was a very big day for Facebook. News leading into, and coming out of Facebook's F8 Developer Conference demonstrates how Facebook is evolving to meet the times, driving some serious innovation, and has reinforced what has been zinging in my mind for weeks:
Facebook is the new business card.
The traditional use of the business card is reserved for two specific purposes. Cards are exchanged in the hopes we may do business someday, or we are actively doing business now.
My thinking here hedges along the lines of (and I am not the first to say this as it pertains to the social web) how Facebook can create an environment where relationship building and credibility are measured in "trust capital".The traditional business card can only go so far in establishing a promising connection.
As such in life, whether in online or offline professional circles (outside of family and friend connections), it's not who we know, but who we connect with, and who connects with us. Many of us have experienced this reality when using the professional networking site Linkedin for the last couple of years. I now predict Facebook will become more influential to business networking and relationship building than Linkedin is now. Not saying Linkedin isn't important, because it is, and is very useful, but Facebook adds platform dynamics, and communication components that Linkedin doesn't.
On the other spectrum, comparing Facebook to Twitter is becoming less interesting, because both services provide users unique, and exclusive benefits. To be blunt for a moment, Facebook is evolving so quickly and profoundly, it's starting to blow Twitter away. I mean, Twitter offers users great opportunities. Truly, it is a dynamic platform where influentials, media folk, and marketers can broadcast tweets in 140 characters or less, with messages that can be viewed and digested by millions of people. Literally Instantaneously. Follow away, or unfollow at anytime. We all are all well aware of the power of Twitter. Yet, I am realizing Twitter lacks business intimacy.
Meanwhile, over on Facebook, where the number of active users is approaching 500 million, more and more, I am seeing people I do business with, or want to do business with who maybe aren't on Twitter or not very active on Twitter, but use Facebook because it makes sense for their social networking and lifestyle preferences.
While several points came out of today's Facebook F8 conference, I am most excited about the expanded "like" feature that will begin to spread across the social web. This is a fascinating feature where users can "like" an article, fan page, or whatever it may be outside of Facebook, and the liked page shows up as a link in the users Facebook stream, connecting the larger web to our own internal online community. I just tested this like feature out with a Slate article Introducting Facebook Social Plugins and really "liked" the result. Simple, but profound, and even a bit revolutionary.
So how will this new "like" feature generate business revenue? It's in the fan pages, and information sharing, which again is nothing new, but the way Facebook is evolving, makes this environment so much more relevant for creating trust capital and branding. ROI is still a questionable metric for most social web users, but this trust capital can go a long way in building and maintaining great, long term business relationships.
Anyone can hand out a business card at anytime. Maybe that card will be utilized, filed in a Rolodex, or tossed in the garbage. But in the world of business, accept a Facebook (and Linkedin, to be fair) friend request from a current customer, or future customer, and you've just opened up the door to strengthen your bridge to increased business opportunity. Of course, how one markets themselves on Facebook is important. Within one's Facebook profile or fan page exists the opportunity to view into a window of what a person or business is all about, and how it can bring value to your organization.
Today was a very good day for Facebook, but really, a great day for the social web, pointing the way to how anyone can grow and enhance their online presence. I'm thrilled.
And since this post represents the first time I've spoken in social media speak, I think I might have just jumped the shark. But oh well.
To learn more about Facebook's exciting social web evolution, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook put his thoughts together in a blog titled Bulding The Social Web Together.
Do I have your Facebook business card?
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David Meerman Scott Interviews Seth Godin
A Clever PR Campaign
If you've been paying attention to the news about the recent Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, you know how controversial this decision is. While I am not endorsing the Supreme Court ruling, I have to admit, when learning that PR Firm Murray Hill Inc. decided to run for Congress, inspired by the SOTUS decision, I took interest. Murray Hill, a Maryland based company is using the position of "Corporate Person" to establish the firm as a "corporate candidate".
Politics aside, this is a clever use of PR power, and is one of the most creative campaigns I've seen in a while. But the thing is, they are serious, and have begun filing paperwork to run for Congress. Here is the Murray Hill press release Supreme Court Ruling Spurs Corporation Run For Congress: First Test of Corporate Personhood in Politics , and their campaign video is below.
Interesting video featuring Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook on Internet Social Norms and Privacy.
