The Old Spice Guy, Isaiah Mustafa
When it comes to raising awareness, Wieden+Kennedy’s Old Spice Guy campaign was an enormous success.
Building on the appealing “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot featuring Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa, W+K launched a 3-day social media blitz. In response to thousands of questions submitted on Twitter, the W+K team published 183 video responses on YouTube that received almost 40 million views.
But, with the addition of dynamic video advertising, could the campaign have been even better? Here’s a description of the road that W+K might have taken.
Extend the TV campaign online
In response to data showing that brand and message recall is twice as effective when using both TV and online, W+K allocated 10% of the P&G Old Spice TV budget to online.
The majority of Americans simultaneously watch TV and surf the web. Fifty-four percent of these multi-taskers say the Internet is their primary focus. Heeding these trends, W+K realized that adding an online component would increase the campaign’s reach without increasing its budget.
To implement the online part of the campaign, W+K:
- Re-purposed the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot to run online as in-banner video ads.
- Managed the media for the online campaign so the video ads would run on premium websites frequented by the target audience – women 25 to 45 years of age. For example, the ads might run on sites like Cafe Mom and the entertainment sections of the local online newspapers and magazines.
- Tracked the performance of the ads and optimized the ad content and placement in response to the performance data.
W+K also saw their online video ad strategy as an important complement to the anticipated social media blitz.
- Nothing beats a YouTube channel for a low-cost, high-impact way to build brand awareness. Whether a viral hit actually increases product sales is another question. With their proven ability to drive purchase intent, online video ads served as the perfect complement to Mustafa’s YouTube video responses.
- W+K was delighted to have a home for the footage they shot but never used in the response videos. They channeled that extra footage into follow-up video ads that ran across the same properties where the original re-purposed TV spot ran.
Build momentum
Because their video ads were dynamic, W+K easily used its online campaign to stoke enthusiasm for Old Spice Guy and increase overall campaign momentum.
- Auto optimization W+K created different versions of the original “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” video ad. Each version had a unique StartFrame, the image viewers see in the Player before the video plays. The StartFrames, of course, featured Old Spice Man in different poses with different props. W+K rotated the versions through the same Player. After a specific number of impressions, the low performers automatically stopped running, leaving only the best performer live. W+K was interested to see that the best performers varied by placement domain.
- Fresh content When the social media blitz began, the online video ads easily kept pace. W+K refreshed content and calls to action daily and even hourly without re-trafficking any ad tags.
- Live feeds To integrate video ads into the rapid question-response flow, W+K included a live Twitter feed widget in their video ads. As they viewed the ads, viewers kept up with the latest question submissions.
Increase engagement
Because their video ads were interactive, W+K was able to maximize its online campaign to drive purchase intent as well as brand favorability. For example, from within its Old Spice video ads, W+K:
- Offered discount coupons Viewers clicked printable coupons available only through the online video ads.
- Offered signed Isaiah Mustafa photos Viewers opened custom lead capture forms to request photos through email while P&G grew its contact lists.
- Included Facebook and Twitter icons Viewers clicked icons to go directly to the Old Spice Facebook and Twitter pages.
- Promoted social media sharing Share links allowed viewers to easily share video ads with their friends and followers.
- Redirected viewers to the Mustafa response videos After the social media blitz began, W+K added redirect actions to the video ads. This gave viewers the option to watch Mustafa’s response videos without ever leaving the original ad. As new responses became available, W+K easily swapped in the new videos without re-trafficking any ad tags.
Ah, what might have been. As our hypothetical scenario shows, dynamic video ad campaigns have the power to extend TV campaigns and complement and augment social media blitzs. Start your own campaign today.
Filed under: Agencies, Publishers, TV and Xspots
