Procter & Gamble, the makers of the hugely popular Old Spice men's after shave, launched a social media blitz this past week posting videos on the YouTube, which would be replayed for months, so that other companies could study how P&G did it. "The Old Spice strategy makes brilliant use of social media. The response has been terrific. Social networks are buzzing. Video resharing has been very high, and the Old Spice YouTube channel now has 75 million total upload views. And this effort shows evidence of going even more viral," said Augie Ray, an analyst with market research firm Forrester to BusinessWeek.
Earlie this year, Old Spice had aired some quirky commercials featuring ex-football player Isaiah Mustafa, who was shown playing with the product while making fun of heart throbs from Harlequin romance novels. In the latest camping, Proctor & Gamble had Mustafa making a list of videos that responded individually to some fans' messages and questions that came to them via different social networking sites like Facebook , Yahoo and Twitter .
All videos featured a bare-chested Mustafa wearing just a towel around his waist and holding a bottle of Old Spice and addressing individual users, such as "W. Spencer on Twitter " and "Rose from Yahoo." The videos are getting famous and people are watching and rewatching it on flocking to YouTube. The videos have also attracted the attention of Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Alyssa Milano. The duo have also posted their own questions.
The Old Spice videos, conceived by ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, yesterday accounted for seven of the top 10 videos on YouTube. "Certainly, they showed everyone how to create viral videos. This was surprisingly good work from a brand that most folks had largely written off as obsolete. They created an entertaining video that also made the company appear new and trendy," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group
