Old Spice a hit everywhere but the store
I came accross an interesting post today from twitter
The Old Spice videos which I absolutely hated and which drove Niall into an absolute frenzy in which he called it “Best Use Of Social Media In An Ad Campaign Ever” didnt improve sales and in fact the week after the campaign sales are down 7%.
But buzz did not add up to sales, according to advertising news service WARC. Red Zone After Hours body wash sales have fallen seven percent, despite the ads. Yet BNET argues that Mustafa is such a media darling that nixing the campaign would be a PR disaster. So why are sales down?
Jezebel argues the brand sent mixed messages. The ad’s tagline was “Smell Like a Man, Man,” yet Mustafa opens the ads with “Hello, ladies.” Who was supposed to actually buy the body wash? Plus, Old Spice has long been associated with our grandfathers.
For me this is the crux of “social media” , we all knew about it and I mean by us a small techie group who went around patting each other on the back and telling each other how brilliant a move this was by Old Spice.
Whilst I want to run around and say I told you so, well I told you so
I didn’t write this just to pick on Niall though or the campaign
Hopefully we wont get carried away again with this echo chamber, it certainly doesn’t help, social media is part of the marketing plan, its not the marketing plan.
And if someone mentions brand awareness they will be suitably chastened in what I hope will be interesting comments.
You’re not alone Pat
http://twitter.com/Whatleydude/statuses/18507321951
Glad to know I’m not the only one thinking that then. I had same sort of exchange a week or so ago.
Too much emphasis is put on the “brand awareness” thing as it’s really difficult to track sales against social media campaigns.
Now I find out via your blog that sales go down 7%….. that’s just made my day.
–
@xxxxxxxxxx Let us not forget that pretty much most people knew Old Spice as a brand anyway
16 July 2010 10:01:35 via TweetDeck in reply to xxxxxxxxxx
@xxxxxxxxxx I’ve got into this argument before, I know brand awareness is one thing but in the end it has to transfer into sales.
16 July 2010 09:59:46 via TweetDeck in reply to xxxxxxxxxx
@xxxxxxxxxx Great stats, tons of new followers in a wave of hype but will it lead to real sales? Or am I missing the point somewhere?
Old Spice brand manager James Moorhead: “Old Spice is the number one male body wash and deodorant in both dollar and volume share. While we can’t disclose specific sales data, we can tell you we are very happy with the positive business growth that has been a result of the campaign.”
http://bit.ly/aOwf8Y
I guess I had better duck if I use the “a” word, but if the goal of the campaign really was awareness and not drive or conversion, I think it’s legit. Still a success. Many a campaign have been made that just refreshes or introduces a name.
It was effective in my eyes because I actually thought of Old Spice as a viable brand for the first time since seeing it in my father’s medicine cabinet 20 years ago.
Pat I’d still say in terms of an integrated campaign it was stunning and produced spectacular results. Whats important to remember here is that this was an ad campaign that cost millions first and foremost and the argument is the oldest one in the world…does advertising work?
My point is that in terms of amplifying the campaign through social media (much cheaper than buying ad space on TV) they did a stunning job of tapping in to all the people with egos like Perez Hilton, Kevin Rose etc etc.
We had a big row about this on the office and the only thing we could all agree on was that the product was shit. The girls didnt want their guys to use it and the guys thought it was from the 70s. At the end of the day it was a shit product and no amount of coverage is going to change that.
Now I’ll leave you with a question….
If you could get that sort of coverage for Maxroam for lets say 250,000k ( made up number as no idea how much actual campaign cost) would you go for it or not?
I still reckon this one is a winner. As you say, Old Spice is for grandaddies, but we all might consider buying it now.
More to the point, our burds might consider buying it for us now. Look out for your stockings come Christmas.
Sentiment takes a while to build, and they may just have timed their run perfectly on this one.
Few points.
I loved the videos and based upon the videos I wanted to buy the product.
1) the product cant be found in Ireland
2) see point one.
Also side point in SZ’s vlog update they go on about the stigma (or whatever the word is) attached with oldspice, old man smell etc but the whole ad campaign is to sell the bodywash which doesn’t smell like the original old spice and is their way of reinventing the brand.
Anyways see point 1.
@Ben re this:
“but the whole ad campaign is to sell the bodywash which doesn’t smell like the original old spice”
Really?! I actually had no idea…
(it certainly wasn’t shared via the ad!)
Reason there’s not a correlation between this campaign’s popularity and sales:
The campaign was most popular with geeks, and it’s common knowledge that most don’t shower, anyway. No use for the various @OldSpice products.
Seriously, though, I don’t think the next week’s sales are a great indicator of the success of the campaign. Don’t think anybody was expecting people who liked the spots to drop everything and buy some body wash.
The one thing I’m sure we’ll never get to see is the marketing company’s ROI criteria. It might be increased email marketing numbers, Youtube hits, Facebook page friends…. who knows. Simple stuff that would warrant a campaign as “successful” because the bottom line is pretty low.
For me, it’s about incremental profit and how social media can improve that. And I’ve yet to see a compelling case study but I’m willing to be shown.
(Really enjoying this post and the comments btw)
James, I know. My point was relevant to the SZ vlog which they argue over the merits of original old spice which the advert is clearly not about.
So my point is how aware are people of the product especially I the dogs bollocks of marketing don’t know what the ad is actually for.
My point stands, what’s the point in telling me about a product that i cant buy?
@JustinS – The problem I see is that most of viral campaigns are very forgettable. Within two weeks everyone will have moved on. So the skill is capturing as much as you can in the days following, not weeks or months.
I think the social media literati are gobbling this up, hook line and sinker. The video may have been mildly amusing, but it has about enough market impact as one of those cute kitten videos.
People reacted to the videos like they did *because* it was so unlike the traditional Old Spice spots. It was fast and a little witty. Will it change people’s mind about the product? No, it won’t. One video won’t do it. And Old Spice persist in making more videos, expect diminishing coverage returns when this gimmick gets old fast.
All in all, the video is a curiosity and certainly won’t change Old Spice’s image as fuddy-duddy water. If the video campaign did cost 250k, then they should have burned the money for the value they’ll get in future brand revival seen as a rise in concrete sales.
If they were only trying to change their image, they’ve succeeded (in the short-term).
If they were only trying to boost sales, there isn’t enough data yet – I mean does anyone think that that’s the end of the campaign, and we have to see how many bottles they shifted over the weekend? Plus, what’s the bottom line with SMM? you have to keep at it over a long time.
If they were trying to change their image and boost sales, then I think in fairness we should wait a little bit longer before passing judgment.
If they have any sense, and I think this campaign shows they have some, they’ll keep at it, and as I said above, we’ll all be getting the damn stuff at Christmas – worldwide.
Of course, I could be wrong. How much are they spending on it? If there isn’t an initial sales bounce, the head honchos might get itchy and pull the plug, but that would be a terrible move in my opinion
Jase – Definitely see your point. And if they are remembered, they often become the source of ridicule before too long.
Like some of the others commenting, though, I think the main goals of this campaign were:
1. Create buzz, hopefully rejuvenating the brand.
2. Introduce the fact that @OldSpice isn’t just that single product that grandpa used to use, but rather an entire product line (body wash, deodorant, etc.), none of which smell like nursing homes.
I’m not sure there’s a good metric for measuring the success of either.
@Alexia It’s not one video, it’s over 200.
Have a look at the youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/OldSpice#g/u
@Ciarán I rest my case so.. *yawn*
@Alexia – please stop yawning and pay attention to note above:
“Old Spice is the number one male body wash and deodorant in both dollar and volume share. While we can’t disclose specific sales data, we can tell you we are very happy with the positive business growth that has been a result of the campaign.”
@Ben – this is a US campaign featuring product distributed in the USA. But if it keeps going the way it is, expect OS bodywash in Irish stores soon.
Okay, so… but just for you.
If Old Spice is number one in their market in both dollar and volume share, what exactly are they trying to achieve?
The statement you quote points to business growth. OS aren’t releasing sales data and the links Pat references above are skeptical. Who knows what the sales numbers are. But you know what – if sales did improve, I can’t see why even quoting percentage increases would be sensitive.
Business growth is a catchall phrase. I’m not saying that
What I do have a problem with is the feeling that this campaign and many others like it are Band-Aids for businesses that vie for attention. I’d much prefer to see more money put into growing communications initiatives in companies instead of a 3/6 mo blast on Youtube, Facebook or whatever else you are having.
Crap .. not having a great night expressing myself, might be time for vacuous telly.
“Business growth is a catchall phrase. I’m not saying that I don’t believe it”
@alexia “I’d much prefer to see more money put into growing communications initiatives in companies instead of a 3/6 mo blast on Youtube, Facebook or whatever else”. What does that actually mean? What is a ‘growing coummunications initiative’? And why would such a thing (whatever it is) be channel-specific?
@neilc
It’s not channel-specific and I didn’t say it was. It’s time-specific. It’s much easier for advertising, marketing and creatives to think about bright campaigns that last for 3/6 mos and flood channels than to to partnership with a company for longer.
Don’t you think that short campaigns try radical idea to build more light than heat for the product. The inevitable chop and change for another campaign a year or two years down the line with a very different theme has to result in losing momentum and “heat”. I know I’m speaking in roundabouts here with the word heat.
Like when Old Spice decide they’ve outgrown the Old Spice man. Look at their Twitter page – http://twitter.com/oldspice – it’s all pimped out with Old Spice guy. Once the social media campaign changes, the guy will be canned from the social media spots. What does this say about the product? Old Spice think disposable is okay? That ironic sexy guy that women are supposed to want and men want to be is fine until a better idea comes along.
Old Spice imagey used to be aspirational -whether is was ’85 Chrimbo ad with the kid saying they liked the smell of their dad or the cheesy 60′s spots starring cads. Back then the message actually meant something.
The new Old Spice guy is witty and post-modern in a Wes Craven Scream sort of way. But where will the brand be when it decides to move on?
(btw – long-time fangirl of the W2O blog)
@alexia Who says it’s a short campaign? We’re two or three years into the Old Spice campaign. (A lot more than 3-6 months.) We’ve had Bruce Campbell and Will Ferrell as manly spokesmen. Now we have Isaiah. I don’t get your point here at all. Are you suggesting that this campaign is somehow weakening Old Spice brand equity? What’s your basis for this assertion?
And who says ‘radical’ has to be short term? We’ve been doing radical on Nike for over 25 years now.
Great lot of comments so far. Shame most are from fuckwits.
If you have a shit product, traditional media can’t help you these days. If you have a shit product, social media can’t help you either these days despite what all the people that directly or indirectly pedal social media with a moral backbone say.
A man may have great fun with the town slapper but he’s never going to marry her. Despite her “buzz”.
I wasn’t even aware of the socmeeja frenzy about this. I caught the original I’m on a boat and it is an absolutely outstanding ad that will deserve every prize it’s gonna win. Old school clever advertising, with people thinking and constructing a very pure execution of a clear idea. It certainly reinspired me, and believe me I am fannying around in advertising for a long time.
All this by way of saying essentially the soc media stuff is another creature altogether. If it succeeds or doesn’t is immaterial to the original guy-on-a-boat execution. Bigger/faster/more etc is clearly aiming the marketing money somewhere else. The original spoke to the ladies and has succeeded wildly in putting a brand name with a lot of history (yes, and baggage) front and centre once more. The ‘virals’ I’ve seen are clearly not in the TV ad’s league, frankly, and I won’t vouch for their sucess or otherwise. The expense of primetime US TV spots will be justified in the longer run. Of that I am convinced.
Meanwhile they have a lot of parallels with another brilliant campaign for Dos Equis. Superb production and memorability. These and the creativity of the ads themselves are often the only attributes that a product actually has to stand out from others when in reality it’s the same shit in a different container. But you knew that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUdSjpc9-70&feature=related
Twitter: frankiep
22nd July, 2010 at 2:40 am
Those of you not entitled to an opinion please step away from your keyboards now. Thank you.
I agree with Pat’s point that social media is just a component of your internet strategy. If you consider social media in isolation it’s a waste of time.
Somebody I was talking to recently was disappointed because they posted an update on LinkedIn about a webinar and got nobody to go to it. Of course that’s not going to work. If you post an update to your groups on LinkedIn, send some tweets, do some e-mail marketing, mention it on forums, blog about it, create a landing page on your website to convert people then you have a chance.
Unless social media is part of your overall internet marketing strategy you’re in trouble.
In fairness, regardless of whether or not the product is poor , is it not way too early to be making any judgment on the impact that this campaign has had on sales. I mean the first video isn’t even a month old yet.
Maybe give it a few months, perhaps even up to the post Christmas period, and then analyse the sales in order to make a judgment on the campaign’s success.
Here’s my take on the campaign. Old spice when to a marketing company and tried to be innovative by telling them to be innovative and creative. So they came up with a great campaign and will probably win some awards for creativeness and innovation because thats what they were. Entertaining, yes, but totally unpractical.
The Problem is that their goals weren’t aligned with that of their clients actual goals. The campaign is really appealing to the 12-45 age demographic, but who is it that really wears old spice?? My guess is fishermen and the 60+. So it alienated them in some respects by appealing to a new market, hence sales are down.
So whats the fix?? There’s still a lot of power in this campaign. If i was in charge i’d release a new fragrance aimed at teenagers. Have a teen who does the same bits ripping on the “old guy” which they’ll identify with. Then have another campaign with the older guy having fun back, again pushing a new product aimed at the 25+:
“Hi i’m that guy that that girl wishes that guy was.”
Unfortunately old spice is what I associate with grandads and no matter how hard they push it on my generation, we don’t want to smell like grandads. It was lazy market research to start with.
You can analyse till the cows come home.
I tried this shite once around 20 years ago (stole it from my brother to be exact) and no amount of social media buzz will ever get me near any old spice product again. Even if i had an ego of my very own for them to play with, I’d be reaching for the off button faster than a screaming ninja.
I don’t think it’s surprising that the campaign hasn’t had a huge impact on sales. As many commentators have said previously, Old Spice has a major problem in that it’s perceived as an old product and not a very good one. Prior to this campaign it is unlikely that the product registered on the radar of consumers under 35. This social media campaign has put the product back on the map with a younger audience, getting a new breed of consumer to pick up a tester in their local shop and have a whiff. Will they buy? Who knows? But Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say and a brand cannot be reinvigorated and modernised in a couple of months either. They have a lot of work to do – redesigning packaging and so on if they want to broaden the products appeal. I think the campaign has been a great success and I would imagine that the brand will now see the value of engaging with consumers in a new and creative way and will aim to build on this campaign to convert awareness into sales.
I’m surprised no journalists have noticed that the (quasi-)celebrities who were tweeting to the Old Spice man are all from the Ashton Kutcher stable of mates – Kim Kardashian, Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano, AK and his wife Demi Moore. Here’s why that’s significant:
Katalyst Media, AK’s company, has been getting into social media consulting. Suddenly the stunning speed with which the Old Spice writers got their response videos written doesn’t seem so surprising; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was all orchestrated and carefully timed.
This is just guess work on my part, but I’d be curious to know if any journalists had looked into these very obvious dots to see if they could connect them.
Twitter: shanekny
22nd July, 2010 at 3:15 pm
This is not a short term campaign. Nor is it ‘impractical’ @ronanob. (Thanks for the advice on the fix, BTW.)
The Old Spice campaign has been around for a while and has driven sales.
Old Spice number one in share and value in US.
2 x silver effies in 2009 and 2010.
Initial results from latest round excellent: http://bit.ly/9MFToc
I could be looking at it awfully simplistically but for me, if you invest money you expect a return from it. Yes the ads might have altered the opinion of the brand itself but if it’s only short-term and cannot eventually be converted into sales at the very least, what was the point except to entertain people momentarily?
It’s possibly early days to call it a failure, but converting short-term incremental sales into something lasting would be the goal for me, reminder advertising at high costs, especially when it’s necessarily targeting the main audience isn’t viable. Just think of the recent Nike ad, it entertained but the costs were huge and how much can it grow?
Neil C, are you paid by Old Spice to leave comments on this blog or are you doing this free for your client? All I’m seeing are a few bitchy remarks in between sales pitches. You could have been a bit more transparent. Not very social media of you at all.
@Neil C
Neil I dont think you disclosed that you work for http://www.wk.com/clients
I think thats pretty unusual to be honest
I’m on a horse.
Pat / Damien – I thought I’d made my interest here obvious by including my email, linking to W+K blog and mentioning that as well as Old Spice we also do work for Nike. I thought that was pretty transparent. But I can see that maybe some people didn’t realise I work at Old Spice’s agency Wieden+Kennedy. Apologies if I wasn’t clear enough about that. This means that I am privy to information that some of the commenters are not. I can’t speak on behalf of the client, just wanted to draw attention to some of the facts that people didn’t seem to be aware of. My intention was to join the conversation and correct some of the widely reported and repeated misconceptions about the campaign.
The thing I find fascinating about your original post and the tone of the comments is that they seem to suggest a desire to see work that is smart, entertaining and innovative fail. (Interesting that someone above also refers critically to our highly successful Nike ‘Write the Future’ campaign – ‘how much can it grow’? Blimey – it’s HUGE! How much bigger were you hoping for?) Shouldn’t we all, regardless of who pays us, be celebrating the success of fresh, funny, distinctive campaigns that are hard-working and delightful, not seeking to discredit them.
Silver fish hand catch!
Niel, considering you seem to take offence to my idea that Nike can’t grow, I subscribe to the school of marketing that says it is not only to introduce a product to the Market, but to create consumer interest and drive sales.
You might be privy to information others do not have but simply to reiterate that Old Spice is the top selling brand in the US does not remove the fact that sales have decreased.
Perhaps I should have been clearer but most business or marketing courses will tell you that plans and goals should be measurable and using the information here, the stats go against it. I don’t question how interesting the ads are, I question what the purpose is and if they’re achieving them, using that main concept it’s failing to sell anything. Even to say it’s to engage with customers, sales are generally the end goal and so far that’s not converting.
This is hilarious!
There seems to be a very ‘cool’ opinion here that poor little novices Old Spice might have spent far too much money on this re-brand and get no sales from it.
Whereas actually, if you do a little bit of research, you’ll find that they’ve done it before (only 2008!), and cashed in:
http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/07/how-old-spice-swaggerized-their-brand-and-men-everywhere/
I wonder about the endless possibilities that never happened in that great film What Women Want, where the great character played by Mel Gibson didn’t even use social media in his ad campaign for Nike.
He just pranced around in womens pantyhose and nail varnish. DEFINITELY not old spice material.
‘I’m in a dress’
@ben your wife’s dress?
@charles:
Nike and P&G know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing and selling product. Their work is what gets taught in the marketing courses of which you speak. You imply that there is some school of marketing other than the one that believes in increasing value and driving sales. If that school exists, I would not enrol for its classes.
Nike can grow and is growing – fourth quarter revenues up 8 percent versus prior year to $5.1 billion. Fact.
Old Spice – sales have not decreased. Fact.
Please know that I consider you my dearest and closest internet friends. I’ll never forget this time we’ve spent together.
I love you all. You too, Pat.
x
Neil,
if you actually read what I was saying (or anyone else’s content more generally) rather than being passive-aggressive, you’d see that’s what I was saying – it’s about sales.
I’ll take your points but not the attitude.
I’ve turned my jetski around and I’m riding back out of the sunset to share one last bit of good news for true believers in creativity and effectiveness:
“The brand’s ad agency Wieden + Kennedy developed and coordinated 186 customized video responses that contributed to a 107% increase in Old Spice Body Wash sales over the last month, according to Nielsen data from Mike Norton, director of external relations for male grooming at P&G.”
http://bit.ly/brRQKG
One. Hundred. And seven. Per cent. INCREASE.
Old Spice smells like the sweet smell of success.
Should we expect an amazin’ social meeja campaign to cancel out your cunty attitude Neil? Your. Cunty. Attitude. NEIL.
Twitter: frankiep
23rd July, 2010 at 12:26 am
Wow, this post, with it’s comments, is now the most depressing page I’m aware of as a reflection of the Irish online community. Yes I include my own comment, and yes I’m aware some commenters outside Ireland also did not have their shining moment here, but wow. Depressing.
Frank, you’re right. For my part, I apologise.
Old Spice smells like the sweet smell of success.
Nope, it still smells like Mr Sheen mixed with cat piss.
Wired article says that sales are double this time last year – seems like the ads may have converted into $$$. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/the-power-of-social-media-part-ii/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29
The defence rests its case!
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/27/old-spice-polishes-its-monocle-smile-all-the-way-to-a-107-sales-increase/
Ahhh Liam
knew you would be hanging around somewhere with the oul negative comment
Old habits die hard
Beats me how posting a link to counter argument constitutes a negative comment? I’m obviously not up to speed with etiquette so hereby pledge not to comment here again. Ever again. p.s. Cubic corp profile on Linkedin needs attention – parent company entry.