Facilitated Conversation with Sex Appeal!

Old Spice hit the hammer on the social media nail and created a campaign where viewers (potential customers) watched ads, interacted with the ads on YouTube and spread the word of the ad through social media and thereby caused Old Spice profits to escalate. Consumers helped build the Old Spice story through facilitated conversation with the Old Spice man himself. And those consumers became connected with the story as a result. 

 

In the video above, the Old Spice man appears in a follow-up clip where he responds to comments from a fan named Lindsey. These responses were posted on YouTube and they were a major hit. This facilitated conversation caused Old Spice’s total website views to skyrocket and caused sales to spike 107 percent.

The Old Spice success story proves that consumers, if motivated enough like in the Old Spice example, can propel a message forward through social media and quickly reshape the brand of a product at a pace that can annihilate any well-planned marketing strategy that lacks facilitated conversation.

What is especially unique about the Old Spice campaign is that the Old Spice man in the commercial is talking to a woman when the product is meant to be used by a man. These commercials were a sort of call to action for women to buy Old Spice for their men, not really for men to buy Old Spice for themselves. But regardless, the campaign told a story through a narrative that all consumers, women and men, could participate in.