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.

This article was originally posted at Digital Ministry.

I’d like everyone to pay 1 minute silence for the late Digsby Minnie, Digital Ministry’s fictional Facebook profile. The killer, Facebook terms and conditions.

This is a follow-up to Chris’s article last August on the limitations of Facebook for advertisers.

So, Facebook is a profit seeking organisation, no news here, it employs over 700 people (news to me too), and I’m sure some of them are pretty smart. Like Free-to-air TV, Facebook’s offering is effectively free for consumers, and they seek to generate revenue through alternative channels, like advertising.

Their challenge

Therefore FB’s product, in effect, is people, the people that use it. How it monetises this is the key challenge, one which many Web 2.0 companies are yet to crack. They do know, as a rule of thumb, that the more people they have spending more time in their product the greater the revenues will be, when they figure it out.

Entertaining the masses

And the 150,000,000 people using FB seem relatively happy, they’re uploading over 800,000,000 photos every month (5.3/person), 13,000,000 (8.6%)  are updating their status atleast once a day and they’ve all gotten over the ‘new layout’. So, they’re happy. (More stats here)

Spammers rejoice

Now businesses wanting to reach those 150M people have jumped on the web 2.0.socialmedia.conversational marketing bandwagon and started building databases, promoting events, creating profiles (like poor Digsby) and they’re getting some great value out of it.

The fine print

This is where FB are extremely smart. In the terms and conditions there are cerain details which most people seem to overlook, like the fact that businesses can’t setup groups, they’re only for having fun and community groups.

So why are they smart? Well they’re letting you break the rules, and watching what happens…  If it gets to a point where you’re getting lots of value, they pull back your features, or delete your profile.

They’re doing market research.

So FB needs to make money and they’re figuring out what will work by letting businesses trial applications for free… Events, groups, pages, polls, photos and analytics to name a few. Once they think you’re getting value out of anything, they see they’ve got a product to sell.

It’s in the best interests for everyone.

1. FB need to make money to survive

2. FB need to keep their user base happy (keep spammers out)

Without either of those being fullfilled FB will no longer exist, everyone losses.

Should they care about businesses?

Well not really unless you’re paying them lots of money. And how much would you be willing to pay to manage your 2000 strong member base on your group? Probably not enough to keep them afloat.

I believe they’re realising all kinds of value that they could be charging for and are weighing up the potential profitability of all of them.

But all the while keeping their massive user base happy.

Advertising features, based on cost and benefit:

1. Polls (now called Lexicon)
   They were free, but they changed how it works and you have to pay. (As the SMH reports)
2. Advertising
   It’s always been a paid service, however, advertising your page will give you added benefits, like telling your audience which of their friends is in the page.
3. Groups
   Businesses aren’t ‘allowed’ to setup groups, if you reach 1,000 users sending emails becomes more difficult. If a single profile users sends too many emails their profile gets deleted.
4. Pages
   Considered an advertising product, although it’s free, FB pages provide comprehensive stats on your user base, and works well with advertising. One major weakness is that it’s difficult to reach out to your members, emails aren’t allowed.
5. Events
   Still a free application anyone seems to be able to create an event. Like all aspects of FB it goes viral through the news feed. The added benefit is you can send emails to people attending the event. Only two limitations I can find are, you can only invite 100 people at a time, and have 300 pending invitations at any point in time. But keep any eye on the terms page, things may change.
6. Photos
   It’s one of the main reasons people come to FB. By tagging photos you’ll get exposure to the people you tag, and their friends.
7. Search Engine Ranking
   Until recently nothing inside FB would appear outside FB, which in the most part is why people use the site. Now it appears groups, pages & profile summaries now appear on Google. If you’re not logged in to FB and visit the link from Google you will see a highly limited version.
8. Application Platform
   A massive part of FB which, with photos and status updates, makes up the balance of the majority of user’s acivity. There are currently 140 applications created daily, it’s potentially a great way to reach your audience, but you’ve gotta be better than the 52,000 applications that exist. It’s currently free to build an application on the FB platform.

If you don’t want to pay Facebook to help you market your offering, creating engaging & entertaining content, it will spread like wildfire if it’s worthwhile for someone to forward on, and everything I’ve discussed above doesn’t matter. The problem for most of us is that we’re not  professional entertainers, we’re good at spending money to reach eyeballs.

The music industry and internet industry have been butting heads for years on the issues of music piracy on the internet and lost revenues for record labels and artists (not that artists get much of it anyway).

A few models have been put together, like the 3 strikes law and some other subscription models, however, neither industry has come to an agreement without a fight, and Australia is still to decide on a strategy.

It’s clear in my mind that the music industries old world model is quickly dying, someone needs to show leadership to bring forth some new ideas and ways to monetise the industry in an ever digitised world.

UPDATE (9.20pm) File sharing is perceived by the music industry as music piracy without exception, in this case it isn’t, but it’s something the industry just can’t get over.

I was therefore excited today to read that Bacardi and Groove Armada announced the launch of a completely new approach called B-Live Share which embraces music file sharing.

From Reuters UK

Mark Earls seems to agree with me on this one…

David Thorne, now world famous with two fantastically comical posts, you can read about his second successful post here. This is the post from his site… (Interview with David Thorne here)

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of $233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.07am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Thankyou for contacting us. Unfortunately we are unable to accept drawings as payment and your account remains in arrears of $233.95. Please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.32am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
Can I have my drawing of a spider back then please.

Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.42am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear David,
You emailed the drawing to me. Do you want me to email it back to you?

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.56am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,

Yes please.

Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 12.14pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Attached

From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 09.22am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Whose spider is that?

Dear Jane, Are you sure this drawing of a spider is the one I sent you? This spider only has seven legs and I do not feel I would have made such an elementary mistake when I drew it.

Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.03am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David, Yes it is the same drawing. I copied and pasted it from the email you sent me on the 8th. David your account is still overdue by the amount of $233.95. Please make this payment as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.05am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Automated Out of Office Response

Thankyou for contacting me. I am currently away on leave, traveling through time and will be returning last week.

Regards, David.
From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.08am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Hello, I am back and have read through your emails and accept that despite missing a leg, that drawing of a spider may indeed be the one I sent you. I realise with hindsight that it is possible you rejected the drawing of a spider due to this obvious limb ommission but did not point it out in an effort to avoid hurting my feelings. As such, I am sending you a revised drawing with the correct number of legs as full payment for any amount outstanding. I trust this will bring the matter to a conclusion.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 2.51pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David, As I have stated, we do not accept drawings in lei of money for accounts outstanding. We accept cheque, bank cheque, money order or cash. Please make a payment this week to avoid incurring any additional fees.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles
From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 3.17pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

I understand and will definately make a payment this week if I remember. As you have not accepted my second drawing as payment, please return the drawing to me as soon as possible. It was silly of me to assume I could provide you with something of completely no value whatsoever, waste your time and then attach such a large amount to it.

Regards, David.
From: Jane Gilles
Date: Tuesday 14 Oct 2008 11.18am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Attached

Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665847

This is another post from the left of centre David Thorne, you can read this and his other blog posts here. In 24 hrs it made it to Digg’s top in 24hrs list, with 2305 votes. This David’s second story that’s gone crazy all over the net, check out the first one here. (Interview with David Thorne here)

This post is an email conversation between him and his neighbour.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 8 Dec 2008 11.04am
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: R.S.V.P.

Dear Matthew,
Thankyou for the party invite. At first glance I thought it may be a child’s party what with it being vibrant and having balloons but I realise you probably did your best with what little tools were available. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. What time would you like me there?

Regards, David.

From: Matthew Smythe
Date: Monday 8 Dec 2008 3.48pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: R.S.V.P.

Hi David
Sorry the note was just to let you know that we might be a bit loud that night. The house warming is really just for friends and family but you can drop past for a beer sometime if you like.
Cheers Matthew

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 8 Dec 2008 5.41pm
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Thanks Matthew,
Including me in your list of friends and family means a lot. You and I don’t tend to have long discussions when we meet in the hallway and I plan to put a stop to that. Next time we bump into each other I intend to have a very long conversation with you and I am sure you are looking forward to that as much as I am. I have told my friend Ross that you are having a party and he is as excited as I am. Do you want us to bring anything or will everything be provided?

Regards, David.

From: Matthew Smythe
Date: Tuesday 9 Dec 2008 10.01am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Hi David
As I said, my housewarming is just for friends and family. There is not a lot of room so cant really have to many people come. Sorry about that mate.
Cheers Matthew

From: David Thorne
Date: Tuesday 9 Dec 2008 2.36pm
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Dear Matthew,
I can appreciate that, our apartments are not very large are they? I myself like to go for a jog every night to keep fit but fear leaving the house so I have to jog on the spot taking very small steps with my arms straight down. I understand the problems of space restrictions all too well. If you would like to store some of your furniture at my place during the party you are quite welcome to – if we move your cane furniture into my spare room for the night and scatter cushions on the ground, that would provide a lot more seating and create a cozy atmosphere at the same time. I have a mirror ball that you can borrow. I have told Ross not to invite anyone else due to the space constraints so it will just be us two and my other friend Simon. When I told Simon that Ross and I were going to a party he became quite angry that I had not invited him as well so I really didn’t have any choice as he can become quite violent. Sometimes I am afraid to even be in the same room as him. So just myself Ross and Simon. Simon’s girlfriend has a work function on that night but might come along after that if she can get a lift with friends.

Regards, David.

From: Matthew Smythe
Date: Tuesday 9 Dec 2008 4.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Wtf? Nobody can come to the houswarming party it is just for friends and family. I dont even know these people. How do you know I have cane furniture? Are you the guy in apartment 1?

From: David Thorne
Date: Tuesday 9 Dec 2008 6.12pm
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Hi Matthew,
I understand it is an exclusive party and I appreciate you trusting my judgement on who to bring. I just assumed you have cane furniture, doesn’t everybody? Cane is possibly one of the most renewable natural resources we have after plastic, it is not only strong but lightweight and attractive. Every item in my apartment is made of cane, including my television. It looks like the one from Gilligan’s Island but is in colour of course. Do you remember that episode where a robot came to the island? That was the best one in my opinion. I always preferred Mary Anne to Ginger, same with Flintstones – I found Betty much more attractive than Wilma but then I am not really keen on redheads at all. They have freckles all over their body did you know? It’s the ones on their back and shoulders that creep me out the most.

Anyway, Ross rang me today all excited about the party and asked me what the theme is, I told him that I don’t think there is a theme and we discussed it and feel that it should be an eighties themed party. I have a white suit and projector and am coming as Nik Kershaw. I have made a looping tape of ‘wouldn’t it be good’ to play as I am sure you will agree that this song rocks and has stood the test of time well. I am in the process of redesigning your invites appropriately and will get a few hundred of them printed off later today. I will have to ask you for the money for this as print cartridges for my Epson are pretty expensive. They stopped making this model a month after I bought it and I have to get the cartridges sent from China. Around $120 should cover it. You can just pop the money in my letter box if I don’t see you before tonight.

Regards, David.

From: Matthew Smythe
Date: Wednesday 10 Dec 2008 11.06pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

What the fuck are yout alking about? There is no theme for the party it is just a few friends and family. noone else can come IT IS ONLY FOR MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY do you understand? Do not print anything out because I am not paying for something I dont need and didnt ask you to do! look I am sorry but i am heaps busy and that night is not convenient. Are you in Apatrment1?

From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 11 Dec 2008 9.15am
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

Hello Matthew,
I agree that it is not very convenient and must admit that when I first received your invitation I was perplexed that it was on a Sunday night but who am I to judge. No, I am in apartment 3B. Our bedroom walls are touching so when we are sleeping our heads are only a few feet apart. If I put my ear to the wall I can hear you. I also agree with you that having a particular theme for your party may not be the best choice, it makes more sense to leave it open as a generic fancy dress party, that way everyone can come dressed in whatever they want. Once, I went to a party in a bear outfit which worked out well as it was freezing and I was the only one warm. As it won’t be cold the night of your party, I have decided to come as a Ninja. I think it would be really good if you dressed as a ninja as well and we could perform a martial arts display for the other guests. I have real swords and will bring them. If you need help with your costume let me know, I have made mine by wrapping a black t-shirt around my face with a hooded jacket and cut finger holes in black socks for the gloves. I do not have any black pants so will spray paint my legs on the night.

It is a little hard to breath in the costume so I will need you to keep the window open during the party to provide good air circulation. Actually, I just had a thought, how awesome would it be if I arrived ‘through’ the window like a real ninja. We should definitely do that. I just measured the distance between our balconies and I should be able to jump it. I once leaped across a creek that was over five metres wide and almost made it.

Also, you mentioned in your invitation that if there was anything I needed, to let you know. My car is going in for a service next week and I was wondering, seeing as we are good friends now, if it would be ok to borrow yours on that day. I hate catching the bus as they are full of poor people who don’t own cars.

Regards, David.

From: Matthew Smythe
Date: Thursday 11 Dec 2008 3.02pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: R.S.V.P.

WTF? No you cant borrow my car and there is no fucking 3B. I reckon you are that guy from Apartment 1. You are not coming to my house warming and you are not bringing any of your friends. What the fuck is wrong with you??? The only people invited are friends and family I told you that. It is just drinks there is no fucking fancy dress and only people i know are coming! I dont want to be rude but jesus fucking christ man.

From: David Thorne
Date: Sunday 14 Dec 2008 2.04am
To: Matthew Smythe
Subject: Party

Hello Matthew,
I have been away since Thursday so have not been able to check my email from home. Flying back late today in time for the party and just wanted to say that we are really looking forward to it. Will probably get there around eleven or twelve, just when it starts to liven up. Simon’s girlfriend Cathy’s work function was cancelled so she can make it afterall which is good news. She will probably have a few friends with her so they will take the mini van. Also, I have arranged a Piñata.

Can’t wait, see you tonight.

Regards, David.