Tuesday July 13th, 2010  11:21pm

Throughout the day I’ve been watching the Old Spice guy lighting up the social media airwaves with his personalized video responses. In a well executed campaign, Old Spices’s confident and shirtless spokesman is recording YouTube videos personalized to people who tweet him on Twitter.
If you haven’t seen the Old Spice guy yet, he’s been the centerpiece of Old Spice’s television and print campaign for the last several months.  Old Spice paid to have their tweets sponsored on Twitter, resulting in “Old Spice” being a trending topic for most of the day.

Here’s a few of the personalized videos from today:

Video to @Alyssa_Milano

Video to Digg founder @KevinRose

Video to @Starbucks

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1. Social Media Doesn’t Need a Call to Action

Anyone who learned about marketing learned to end marketing messages with a call to action.  Get the audience to do something — “call now,” “email to sign up” or “get 20% off today only”.  Old Spice’s personal videos are just that–personal.  You definitely get a brand experience, but Old Spice guy isn’t hitting you over the head with an offer or a coupon.  That’s part of the enjoyment.  You can watch and laugh at the smart copy without obligation as you watch him speak directly to someone who tweeted him a question.

It’s hard for traditional marketers to wrap their head around this concept and unlearn the practice of having a call to action.  Successful social media marketing works best when there’s no attempt to sell or act, but rather place importance on the personalized interaction.  The personal interaction in turn creates a stronger association with the brand, and in the case of people who received a personal video, they’re more likely to be a brand ambassador.  They begin the coveted peer to peer recommendation engine.

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2. Good Content Still Wins

Successful social media strategy requires solid content.  A key skill to have in a social media marketing position is the ability to write good copy.  The fun thing about Old Spice is their copy writers were working in tandem with a film crew to quickly write out a witty response, then film it and then upload.  Behind the scenes there was also an editor and someone like a Creative Director to approve the messages.

The important thing to note here is it was somewhat real time.  There wasn’t time to run every line of copy past multiple levels of management for approval.  Old Spice removed the bottle neck and gave their team autonomy to create the video responses on the fly.  If they didn’t do that, the concept wouldn’t have worked as well.

Not only was the writing sharp, but the film crew produces quality YouTube videos with good lighting and good sound.  Their social channels were aligned with consistent messaging.

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3. Engage Influencers

Probably not a coincidence the Old Spice guy responds with personal videos to people who are likely to retweet and share the video with their minions.  Not a bad idea.  If the goal is to create brand ambassadors who in turn facilitate peer to peer recommendation, it’s good to engage people who are influential.

This is a tip you hear from social media marketers across the board.  You have to find and engage with people in social media who can amplify your message quickly.

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4. Social Media Complements Marketing Channels, it Doesn’t Replace Them

Months before Old Spice guy started responding with personalized videos, we already knew who he was from the television commercials and print ads.  We don’t know his name, but we know his personality.  He is a person, or the current face of the Old Spice brand.

By building Old Spice guy’s persona, it was an easy move to take him into the social media space.  There’s already a familiarity with him, meaning there’s already a level of trust.  We know what to expect of him.

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5. Have Fun

The whole Old Spice guy personality is created around this guy who’s funny and cocky.  He walks around with his shirt off wearing a towel talking to the ladies about how he compares to their man.  My favorite line is “I’m on a horse” at the end of one of the first ads.  They guy has a low spokesman voice and can deliver hysterical lines without cracking a smile.  Every YouTube video has some witty response to the tweeter.  My favorite one is the one to Alyssa Milano where he makes a dry reference to Who’s the Boss.

None of the campaign is stuffy.  It’s fun and funny.  People love to laugh and they love to laugh with someone through a personal connection.  Old Spice just set the bar for future social media campaigns.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Old Spice takes social engagement to a whole new level (hardknoxlife.com)
• Old Spice Man connects with the Web (news.cnet.com)
• Old Spice Guy is social media rockstar (cyberjournalist.net)
• Old Spice Man Answers Tweets On YouTube – Ropes In Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano, And Justine Bateman (techcrunch.com)

Tagged as: Alyssa Milano, Digg, Kevin Rose, Marketing, Old Spice, Social media, twitter, YouTube