BAMF MKTG

I know all of you have watched and helped Old Spice become viral. Over the past year, they have transformed a once troubled brand personality into web Dynamite. Boom!

Sure, they have brand awareness, social media implementation (genius use of Twitter and Youtube) and conversation, tons of conversation. But before I go through the low-down of what Old Spice created, watch a few parodies, then come back.

Sesame Street Parody

Scholar Grades Parody

I hope you enjoyed them! Let’s talk some sense though. If you are following social media, love social media, in the social media industry, then you know very damn well that is it difficult to measure your ROI on a social media campaign. Sounds easy to look at campaign budget, compare sales figure spreads, then formulate. No. You cannot account for conversation and other variables. In some cases you can, with new software revolutions in the industry. Maybe you can over a long term approach, but According to an Adweek blog, Ad Freak, published August 4th, just 6 months after the Red Spice campaign, stated some numbers gathered from the Wieden + Kennedy Agency, two I love and one makes me dumbfounded:

-Half the conversations came from women. (Great! The secondary target market responded!)
-The YouTube/Twitter social media response campaign was “the fastest-growing and most popular interactive campaign in history.” (Saw that coming when Old Spice Man responded to twitter questions.)

-Since the campaign launched, Old Spice Bodywash sales are up 27 percent; in the last three months up. 55 percent; and in the last month up 107 percent. (Quite a data confusion)

See, I looked at other people talking about the same mess. SymphonyIRI did some research on sales figures:

(Picture courtesy of Ad Age) Looks good for the overall but two commenter’s from Robert Paterson’s blog, also talking about Old Spice published July 27th suggests good insight:

Commenter 1: “According to PR Week sales of the product increased over 100% last month. A piece in Forbes.com uses the same SymphonyIRI study to show that sales were up 7.9% from the previous year.”

Commenter 2: “…people have got to STOP citing these SymphonyIRI numbers in reference to the Old Spice campaign. They measure the year ending June 13th, 2010, a full month BEFORE the viral/social aspect of the Old Spice campaign even started.”

Granted these results were made in July, the point stays the same. Digging some more, the media took the hook on the first results when actually the results were misleading. But something more interesting is that coupons also had a major effect on sales, Buy-one-get-one-free. In that same article from Evidence Soup, they provided a quote recorded by Ad Age on the Procter and Gamble spokesperson, Mike Norton:

“How much of Old Spice’s recent gains… come from Mr. Mustafa’s ads and how much from the coupons? It’s impossible to know.”

So now I wait for official results, if there are any, on the success of the campaign. Either way I loved the campaign, I subjectively believe that the campaign had positive ROI in addition to the mass conversation and growing viral videos. Let this be a learning experience.

I also came across Heidi Cohen’s blog where she lists out 31 well needed questions to ask about the Old Spice Campaign, number five being:

“5. Brand status. Did the campaign transform the brand making it an icon? Did the brand’s reach become part of the culture?”

Yes, and yes.

Cheers from London.

Tags: Ad, Advertising, Best, Brand, Brand Awareness, Campaign, Conversation, Funny Parody, Old Spice, Social Media Campaign, Symphony IRI, Viral, Youtube