Succeeding with New Strategies
I recently read an article on Read Write Web touching on many of the points I wrote in my previous piece called Stay Nimble: A Successful Design Philosophy. Those points were primarily the strategy of creating at the speed of the Internet and trusting your creatives. These will be two huge strategies we’ll see a lot of in marketing campaigns moving forward. This article in particular focuses on the Old Spice Campaign that’s so popular these days. This is a great case study. Old Spice’s parent company Proctor & Gamble trusted a creative team at Wieden + Kennedy (a large agency embracing new ideals) to write marketing content in real time with little to no supervision, which was in response to social media comments directed at the campaign. Iain Tait of Wieden + Kennedy says,
“We’re looking at who’s written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web…in real time.”
This is an excellent example of how Procter & Gamble got social media right. They did so by showing an understanding / respect for new media and the people who get new media. Bob MacDonald the CEO of Procter & Gamble said the follow about the campaign:
“What I would like to have is a one-on-one relationship with seven billion people in the world and be able to customize offerings for those seven billion people. Digital allows that relationship.”
The key to the success of this campaign has been how they’re listening to influential people on the internet and creating marketing content in real time. They axed a lot of the excessive nature we often see from large agencies (i.e. – the need for huge meeting full of executives sign-offs) and sincerely trusted their creatives by gaving them a long leash.
Speed trumped planning in these response videos. The internet and social media has changed the weight put on the time to create. As I stated in my previous post, this is why responding to change and the dynamic of the internet trumps following a strict plan or procedure. Or building and adjusting on the fly trumps holing up in your office and diagraming out a perfect first run.
The internet is fast. We must remain agile and nimble.
Devin says:
July 24th, 2010
That was a brilliant campaign. Did you see the Old Spice guy remix yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd-xFRT1azE&feature=player_embedded
PJSullivan says:
July 26th, 2010
Ha! Nice remix. Thanks for sharing Devin.
Max R. says:
August 3rd, 2010
Cisco tried to copy this in a tongue and cheek way on for their B2B audience, and mach the campaign. Interesting insight in link below about this. My thought is that, as a B2B company with such a niche audience, you are set up to fail, but also the campaign is not done well, and it kind of makes you feel uncomfortable, which is the tell-take sign a marketing campaign is not working. Humor is a tough thing to inject into an and campaign and risky.
http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/07/cisco-old-spice-campaign/
PJSullivan says:
August 3rd, 2010
I was wondering when someone was going to piggyback off this campaign. I 100% agree with you Max. This makes me very uncomfortable. It’s not funny at all. Considering Cisco is a B2B company, they are playing an entirely different game. They’re speaking to a way smaller audience and an audience with an entirely different motivation. As you said, they were set up to fail.