Mele’s Musings

Old Spice Guy. Brilliant. But not Social.

Before anyone gets into a tizzy, let me start by saying that I think the Old Spice Guy ads done recently by Weiden + Kennedy using near real-time video responses were nothing short of brilliant. They will become the gold standard by which all marketers will hold themselves. I know we will start hearing very soon, “can we do something like the Old Spice Guy ads”? 

And, by at least some measures, they were hugely successful. They got tons of buzz, tons of press, tons of views, and they did a brilliant job of connecting the brand/product to the ads. Something that is very hard to do. How it translates into increased sales is anyone’s guess (AdAge wrote that sales of the advertised product were actually down after the ads ran, but we’ll see how that pans out over time).

No question that these ads went viral. And they were powerful examples of how to leverage social media. But amidst all of the flurry and accolades is one key question: was the effort truly social?

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That begs a question, obviously, and was part of a really good discussion I had the other day with our Director of Social Media Ryan Turner. The question: was it an example of what success in social looks like? My take was no, mostly because they were an ad campaign and not truly social, despite the fact that some were calling this the triumph of social media.

It might help if we define social - which is not an easy thing to do. At its heart, social is a dialogue between people using digital technology to foster that communication. The dialogue can be with family and friends, colleagues, or companies we choose to do business with, and it can occur on a number of platforms and communities. But the point is that there is dialogue, which implies communication with someone - a give and take, an exchange that can be continued, that is ongoing, or at least has the potential to be.

If you agree with that premise, then the Old Spice Guy campaigns were not social, although they brilliantly used social. Instead, the Old Spice Guy ads were a carefully orchestrated campaign.

W+K planned the campaign very carefully. They shot the initial spots. They sought out bloggers and Twitters to respond to, but not in a random way. Then they quickly scripted and shot response ads. In general, they focused on people who had a large number of connections and/or were celebrities in their own right to respond to. Not completely, and not totally, but it is the fact that they were able to capitalize on celebrities and semi-celebrities that started the buzz. This was no groundswell in the truest sense of the word - it didn’t start because a bunch of nobodies stumbled upon the ads. No, it was a carefully calculated communication program.

And good for them. Again, I am in no way disparaging their work. It is amazing work - one of the best campaigns we’ll see this year. And it was risky - it took guts to do it, because it easily could have flopped - and the risk paid off big. But let’s make sure that in our hurry to jump on the bandwagon and proclaim that social has arrived, we take a step back to consider if that is indeed the case.

In many ways, this could become the next Subservient Chicken - it may become the acid test for social in the same way that the Chicken was for viral. Everyone will want one. Many will try and do it, but few will succeed. Because you can’t capture lightning in a bottle very many times. And the Subservient Chicken envy that followed led many advertisers down the path trying to match cleverness with poorly planned attempts of their own. I can see it happening again.

What we need to remember is that clever use of social is not necessarily social per se. And we have to remember that ad campaigns are ad campaigns, not matter how they try and dress themselves up. This ad campaign, and Subservient Chicken were not accidents - they were carefully planned and orchestrated, and took guts and determination - and some genius - to make work.

So what, you may ask? What difference does it make? After all, good advertising is good advertising, and social marketing is hard to evaluate beyond buzz it creates. All very true.

But the goal of social marketing is not really to make ad campaigns. And that’s the point. At its core, social is about creating a dialogue with consumers, not creating ads which are one-way communications. Yes, you can use social media platforms as opportunities to build buzz with customers - and that is legit - but social media in general is not an ad platform. It is, or should be, a dialogue platform. A communication platform that goes beyond simply calculated and orchestrated campaigns.

It’s ultimately probably nit-picking, but it’s a good conversation to have. Am I going to suggest to my clients that they don’t use social to build buzz or support campaigns? Of course not. Again, that is a valid use of the customer communities that are created. But I do have a responsibility to help my clients leverage social in other, more holistics ways - as a way to listen to customers, to respond directly to them, to create useful services for them that are dialogue or sharing based, and to foster meaningful dialogue.

There’s more to being a truly social brand than clever ad campaigns or awards or buzz. Ultimately, it’s about building a relationship with customers.