Who is in control of your brand?

In case you were living under a rock, the Old Spice commercial was first a YouTube success, followed by a TV ad, followed by a massive social media response campaign that got the whole world talking.

(Checkout the Old Spice You Tube channel to get up to speed, and how they wrapped up the campaign here)

The great thing about this case study, unlike many, is it highlights the impact on the bottom line.

Here’s the Old Spice campaign by the numbers, watch the video below for the background.

• On day 1 the campaign received almost 6 million views
  (that’s more than Obama’s victory speech)
• On day 2 old spice had 8 of the 11 most popular videos online
• On day 3 the campaign had reached over 20 million views
• After the first week old spice had over 40 million views
• The old spice twitter following increased 2700% (probably off a lowish base)
• Facebook fan interaction was up 800%
• Oldspice.com website traffic was up 300%
• The old spice YouTube channel became the all time most viewed channel (amazing)
• The campain has generated 1.4 billion impressions since launching the ads 6 months ago
• The campaign increased sales by 27% over 6 months since launching (year on year)
• In the last 3 months sales were up 55%
• And in the last month sales were up 107% from the social responses campaign work
• Old spice is now the #1 body wash brand for men.

One thing they missed was the number of searches for ‘Old Spice’ on Google, which increased nearly 1000%.

Here’s the video

But it’s not over yet

I agree with Niall, that it’s not over yet, the results of this brand shift will have a long term effect on their revenue and opportunities in the market, if they choose to leverage it.

And although the spoofs were rife throughout the campaign (even World Vision had a crack), they may continue to pop up.

Thanks to Aden at Digital buzz for posting this case study of the massive Old Spice campaign.

It’s not damaging or terrible but they’ll surely be losing potential fans because of it.

This advert appeared and appealed to me this morning, a $75,000 would be awesome!

So when I clicked through I’d expect big & clear instructions on how to get my hands on that $75k and probably see other people suggesting their ideas. But alas I didn’t, and it wasn’t until I returned to their page that I noticed a small piece of text explaining the situation.

So I went off to their website to see if I could find anything more about it… again I found nothing.

They paid for my eyeballs and I was ready to be converted, sign up and connect with Pringles, it was just all too hard. Also, people who organically found the fan page wouldn’t realise the enormity of the party competition.

Update: 21st September 2009

The campaign was still running, so I click on the ad and attempted to participate, and this time there was a page about the competition. I gave Pringles permissions to post messages to me, on my wall and to my friends (which is a big ask) and I was all ready to do whatever this campaign was but after I’d done all this I discovered the comp was over.

I’m guessing I had a pretty unqiue experience due to bad timing, as their fan page has increased from 90k+ to 240k+, a pretty good result.

What they might’ve done:

• wait until the comp was ready to announce
• use their fan page image & news feed to advertise the full details of the comp and what to expect
• added some information to their website about it
• created some way for me to signup via email or mobile to receive annoucements about it
• turnd off the competition adverts when the campaign was over
• changed the competition page to say ‘competition closed’ before I entered my details, not after

Some of the gang here at Visual Jazz have been building this amazing campaign over the last 12 months. It’s taken about 25-30 people lots of hours, passion and love.

The core of the campaign is a 24 hour interactive live the life on a submarine. You get given missions, learn about the lifestyle, drive the sub and all kinds of fun things. The artwork and finishing is just amazing, they’ve even built a 3D augmented version of the submarine.  An amazing way to explain the life of being on a sub.

• New Submariner Uniform for your DJ Games site avatar (plus the Submariner Award for your profile)
• Rewards Pack email (once you complete the site) containing awesome stuff
• A detailed insight into what life is like onboard a Collins Class Submarine in the RAN

Check it out at: http://www.defencejobs.gov.au/campaigns/submariners/