The Old Spice Guy Now Making Custom Videos for Fans via Social Media
The "man your man could smell like" makes personalized videos online.
July 13, 2010— -- How do you get bloggers, fans and random Internet folks to make your campaign go viral? Namecheck them in a personalized monologue delivered by a shirtless man, of course! That's right, everyone's favorite topless dude, Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa, has been tweeting just-for-you-vids to a bevy of Internet folk all day.
The Old Spice Guy is undoubtedly one of the most beloved commercial characters in recent memory — he's like The Most Interesting Man in the World, but young and apparently unable to stay fully clothed. He burst on the scene back in February and his videos quickly went viral on YouTube.
Well now he's apparently taking awesomeness to a new level — or the ad execs behind his campaign are, rather. He seems to have heralded the deluge of vids with a tweet:
"Today could be just like the other 364 days you log into twitter, or maybe the Old Spice man shows up @OldSpice"
He then proceeded to send out vids via Twitter to bloggers who have written about him in the past, YouTube commenters, random folks asking random questions on Yahoo Answers, and various and sundry people who have tweeted at him today. He's working pretty fast, too.
After posting a call for questions on Reddit four hours ago, he responded to a cadre of questions rather rapidly. (In other news, his abs must be ti-red.)
This campaign really is a perfect storm of viralty — not only does it target specific bloggers (who are then more likely to cover the whole thing), it also reaches out to less prominent individuals who can be made more aware of Old Spice.
Moreover, they become personally invested in the brand because they have actually become a part of the world it has created. We're not sure if this marathon of videos will lead to more Old Spice products sold — but it definitely creates a brand identity that people will be interested and excited to engage with.
FYI, we also tweeted at the shirtless wonder, so we'll update you if he deigns to make us a vid.
NB: Commenter Liz Pullen also points out that "Old Spice" is a Promoted Trending Topic today. Very clever…
