91) Now Back to Me

Today we had a lecture on "below the line" communication, which in countries other than the US refers to viral and guerrilla marketing efforts. It immediately made me think of the Old Spice phenomenon that has gone crazy viral in the states in the last couple of days. The original commercial was passed along more than the average commercial (it has over 13 million views on YouTube). In response to the campaign’s viral success, Proctor & Gamble decided to ride the word of mouth wave by creating consumer-specific response videos and posting them on Twitter in a never before seen two day marathon of advertising production. Augie Ray’s blog on Forrester said it best -

“This program couldn’t have happened had Proctor & Gamble not ceded control to consumers and to a smart team of marketing professionals. A typical ad takes months to plan and execute—the content is carefully created, production values are high, and many edits are required prior to the campaign launch as different executives and committees weigh in. Compare that to the way this Old Spice campaign worked. Consumers were asked for their input, then a team of social media pros, marketers, writers, videographers and (of course) actor Isaiah Mustafa were sequestered to produce over 150 different video responses over the course of two days.”

You can view all the video responses here. The effort has the social mediasphere buzzing. Notice the spikes below.

Twitter (via Trendistic):


Blogs (via Blogpulse):


The success of this viral campaign demonstrates two points. First, below the line communication doesn’t necessarily exclude traditional forms of media. Let’s not forget that the original content was a TV spot. It was the integration of TV and online social media that propelled it to viraldom. Secondly, as Augie Ray mentioned, the relinquishing of control to the consumer, while seemingly risky can be hugely rewarding in the end.

I included the video above for good measure (the lecturer presented it in class). It's nothing groundbreaking - we all know that social media has been on the rise - but it presents some great ways to look at it number-wise. Enjoy.