“That smells like old socks!” “No, it smells like a man, man!”

Hit or flop? A little cosmetic image adjustment or a completely new brand strategy? For the sweeping discussion alone, the Old Spice-campaign “Smell like a man, man” already deserves an advertising award. Brief summary:

Wieden + Kennedy were charged with improving the dusty image of the Old Spice brand, which lay (or lies) somewhere between “that smells like my grandpa” and “I’d buy it if I wanted the fragrance of 1977.” Professional actor Isaiah Mustafa stands before the camera in just a bath towel and adeptly makes it clear to his female audience that in all probability their boyfriend may not look much like him, but could at least smell like him. What a pompous little…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

The video was circulated rapidly, mostly because it is charming, funny and unusual. But that was not enough. The spread of the film clip was followed closely by thousands of tweets, whether from ordinary users or the major personalities of the Twitter community. Actors, musicians and multipliers sprang upon the Old Spice ad and especially on Isaiah himself. Obviously, the agency could have responded via Twitter, but instead chose an equally unusual route.

Isaiah again stands before the camera in the bathroom set to individually answer the tweets of the Twitter celebrities. This is the actual highlight of the campaign for us. In total 185 videos were personally produced, for celebrities like Alyssa Milano, Demi Moore and Ellen DeGeneres, but also for internet heavyweights such as Guy Kawasaki. Naturally, they were all flattered by the special attention and so shared the personalized videos in their own social networks. Thanks to Isaiah’s intelligent and witty answers, these videos also spread like wildfire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oElH6M_5i4

The videos were played almost 7 million times in the first week. To date, the response videos have clocked up around 50 million views in total. In addition, their Twitter follower count increased by 2700% and currently stands at just over 100,000. The interaction on their Facebook interest page has increased by 800% and it tripled the traffic on the Old Spice website. (Source: Adweek).

Despite this stunning communications success, a controversial discussion immediately broke out: Can a campaign like this actually achieve what it intended; an increase in sales? At first the rumor went around that sales had now completely collapsed. However, the latest figures show the opposite is the case. Yes, the campaign did increase sales. In the first six months since the start of the campaign, sales of Old Spice rose by 27% compared to the same period the previous year; last month it increased by 107%.

We congratulate the agency for this extraordinary achievement and look forward to further inspiring cases like this.