E-dreamz Company Blog

July 13^th to July 15^th showed the world what the future of internet advertising could be. Using an ingenious social media campaign, Old Spice blended their hilarious TV spokesperson with the viral power of the internet. For about 48 hours, the manly “Old Spice Man” answered questions he received via Twitter, Face Book, YouTube, Etc. At the end of the 48 hours, Old Spice had 7,258,771 YouTube channel views, 72,329 Twitter followers, and a viral buzz that is still flooding internet content days later.

Old Spice has been widely successful with their new “Old Spice Man” campaign portrayed by actor Isaiah Mustafa. These commercials feature a shirtless Mustafa talking directly to the ladies at home reassuring them that even though their men can’t look like him, they can smell like him. The Old Spice Man doesn’t only appeal to ladies though. Creative director of the campaign, Iain Tait, explained they wanted a “woman’s man that was okay for men to love” so they came up with a character that could win over any crowd with his loveable manliness.

Recently, Old Spice kicked it up a notch with their latest segment of the Old Spice Man saga - real time internet advertising. For about 48 hours, Old Spice received thousands of questions from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites for the Old Spice Man to hopefully answer. Answers were posted about every 30 minutes with a hysterical response to the lucky user’s question. Famous celebrities and athletes even fell for the Old Spice Man’s scent including; Alyssa Milano, Apollo Ohno, and social media great, Kevin Rose (founder of Digg). It seemed love even began to blossom between Mustafa & Milano as they exchanged seven flirtatious messages!

Celebrities weren’t the only ones to get the attention of the Old Spice Man. Mustafa thoughtfully answered the inquiries of mere commoners as well. Some of the highlights were; consulting a Doctor that Old Spice could safely & effectively replace a human heart, coaching hockey players that old spice will help them score thousands of goals (only if the opposing goalie wasn’t wearing Old Spice) and a personal favorite - engagement liaison between Angela A. Hutt-Chamberlin & Johannes S. Beales.

Unsurprisingly, the two day Q & A session has taken the internet by storm and has gone completely viral. Hundreds upon hundreds of users are tweeting, re-tweeting, sharing, liking & digging the videos like there is no tomorrow. The graph below shows search inquiries for the highlighted keywords from the last 30 days. 

From Google Insights For Search

Google search engine inquiries spike dramatically the day the mini commercials started posting on YouTube. More impressively, this is not tracking any redistribution of the content like sharing and re-tweeting. This graph is solely based on Google search traffic.

Wieden + Kennedy, the advertising agency behind the Old Spice Man campaign, clearly got it right on this one. They understood the potential of the internet to quickly & efficiently distribute vast amounts of information in nearly real time. They also didn't try to re-invent the wheel and instead used well established and popular social mediums to engage users & promote their videos.

 Most importantly, they designed a character and campaign that worked for all advertising mediums. The real challenge in today’s market is to develop a marketing strategy that can be applied to all the advertising outlets. Too often lately, firms have been “dumbing” down their websites to be iPad compatible or exchanging personal meet & greets for weekly chat rooms. Technology is evolving at a fantastic rate, and it’s great; but the new marketing guru will be able to synchronize internet marketing with the already established media channels. Internet marketing is the most effective when used in conjunction with traditional mediums like TV, Radio & Print. Wieden + Kennedy clearly knows that, who’s next?

Yes, saying Google is going to take over the world is a bit dramatic. But, think a bit outside the box and really take a look at how much we interact with Google on a daily basis, and maybe one day we might all pledge allegiance to The Google.

Google, best known for revolutionizing internet search by two graduate students in 1996, has grown to become a publicly traded power house that routinely sets the bar for new internet technology. Google enjoys 65% of all searches done on the internet per year and is usually thought of as “the one” to impress in internet marketing.

Since Google’s humble beginnings in 1996, they have expanded to offer well over one hundred different products. These products bridge a broad spectrum from email, instant messaging and analytical tools to the Nexus One, their new smart phone. In fact, Google has such an impact on the average person’s everyday life, they felt it necessary to come up with Google Dashboard, a product that allows users to see a full breakdown of all the facts Google has on them!

So, what does Google’s influence over our daily lives and the technology sector mean for internet marketing? Google has become a crutch for our industry that is hard to live without. Sixty five percent of our internet marketing efforts go to Google because of their search volume alone. AdWords is the leader in pay per click advertising (PPC), we use most of their web site analytical tools for gathering data, and we even trust them to tell us what kind of search volume our marketing efforts are providing. In short, Google has a huge impact on our industry.

So, what’s to stop them from completely taking over? The merger of the second and third biggest search engines, Bing and Yahoo is a start. Together they will share about 30% of the market, a legitimate thorn in Google’s side. They’ll also combine the web products and usability of Yahoo with the new advanced search algorithm of Bing. This merger will definitely lessen Google’s grasp on internet search and marketing, but will Bing and Yahoo have the technology, products, and performance to give Google a real run for their money?

Only time will tell, what do you think?

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