Strategic Brand Management - Campaign Analysis of Old Spice Man 2010

Old Spice Guy
2010
Social Media Marketing of Old
Spice – the Viral Mega Hit
Strategic Brand Management – Term IV - 2010
Sahil Mehra - Sanchit Gupta - Suresh Hari - Shashi Kanth Tangella

Social Media Marketing of Old Spice – the Viral Mega HitSocial Media Marketing Of Old Spice – The Viral
Mega Hit
1
IMT Ghaziabad PGDM Marketing : 2009 – 2011
Table of Contents
List of Figures: .........................................................................................................................................2
Brand Campaign Descriptors ...................................................................................................................3
Name and description of the Brand .....................................................................................................3
Campaign in Question: ........................................................................................................................4
PR & Advertising Agency Details ..........................................................................................................5
Brief Description of the Campaign .......................................................................................................5
Duration & Frequency of Campaign.....................................................................................................6
The Medium........................................................................................................................................6
Significance .........................................................................................................................................6
Campaign Analysis...................................................................................................................................6
The Campaign Execution......................................................................................................................7
Timeline ..............................................................................................................................................8
Campaign Stats on Twitter...................................................................................................................9
Campaign Stats on Youtube...............................................................................................................14
Campaign Stats on Facebook .............................................................................................................15
Brand Analysis.......................................................................................................................................16
Brand personality ..............................................................................................................................16
Brand identity....................................................................................................................................16
Brand Relationships...........................................................................................................................17
Behavioral loyalty ..........................................................................................................................17
Brand substitutability.....................................................................................................................17
Active engagement........................................................................................................................18
Brand strategies: ...............................................................................................................................18
Brand Equity......................................................................................................................................18
Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................21

Mega Hit
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List of Figures:
Figure 1: Old Spice current Logo..............................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Old Spice After Shave Figure 3: Old Spice Deodorant............................................................3
Figure 4: Isaiah Mustafa - The Old Spice Guy – website Landing Page ......................................................4
Figure 5: The Old Spice guy addressing celebrity actress Alyssa Milano with a personalized video ...........4
Figure 6: the Crew behind the Ad- Campaign...........................................................................................5
Figure 7:Twitter Teaser Ad.......................................................................................................................8
Figure 8: Popularity of Ads in 24 hours ....................................................................................................9
Figure 9:Number of views and responses for Old Spice Ads ...................................................................10
Figure 10: Old Spice Twitter Statistics....................................................................................................10
Figure 11:Old Spice Blog Coverage.........................................................................................................11
Figure 12: Old Spice Search on Twitter ..................................................................................................11
Figure 13: Old Spice Tweets...................................................................................................................12
Figure 14: Types of Tweets in Twitter ....................................................................................................13
Figure 15: Word Cloud for Old Spice on Twitter.....................................................................................13
Figure 16: Most Viewed Videos on Youtube...........................................................................................14
Figure 17: Most Viewed Channels on Youtube.......................................................................................14
Figure 18:Number of fans of Old Spice...................................................................................................15
Figure 19: Old Spice Twitter followers increased from 8k to 66k in 2 days..............................................15
Figure 20: ‘Old’ Old Spice.......................................................................................................................17
Figure 21: ‘New’ Old Spice.....................................................................................................................17
Figure 22: Kapferer’s Brand Prism..........................................................................................................20

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Brand Campaign Descriptors
Name and description of the Brand – OLD SPICE
Figure 1: Old Spice current Logo
Mainly After Shave & Cologne
Figure 2: Old Spice After Shave Figure 3: Old Spice Deodorant

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Campaign in Question: the Viral Video Mega Hit of July.
Banking on the Familiarity of existing campaigns, Old Spice used Social Media to take the brand
interaction to a new level
Figure 4: Isaiah Mustafa - The Old Spice Guy – website Landing Page
Figure 5: The Old Spice guy addressing celebrity actress Alyssa Milano with a personalized video

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PR & Advertising Agency Details:
Weiden + Kennedy
Figure 6: the Crew behind the Ad- Campaign
Source: (Borden)
Brief Description of the Campaign
Using the Social Media for its true purpose. To Interact.
Old Spice has personified the brand as a Smart, Funny and Bold person. Though they have had few
ambassadors in the past, none of them talked to themselves, leave alone talk with the audience.
This Unique idea got the Social Media spinning. And instead of replying text with text, Old Spice (OS)Guy
responded with personalized videos. Though this was more strenuous and time consuming than texting,
it sure had its far-fetched benefits. Source: (Keath)

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This campaign caught attention and interested the people. Strategic choice of whom to respond to and
answer to lead to widespread reach and promotion while keeping the basic idea of fun and brand
relevant.
Duration & Frequency of Campaign
This specific campaign of personalized video messages ran for 3 days from 12th
July 2010 to 14th
July
2010.
A total of 183 video responses were posted on twitter within this time.
Friendly and flirtatious to sarcastic and idealistic messages were conveyed answering people with
‘Gazillions’ followers like Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano to anonymous guys.
This ensured interest among the audience as well as kept the brand in mind.
The Medium
The medium of messaging was via YOUTUBE, answering questions and comments made on Twitter –
Yahoo Answers and other social media platforms.
Significance
The importance of this campaign is in setting trends in the use of social media to involve audience aiding
repositioning the brand from a fatherly and old product to a dashing, funny and handsome experience
whom people like to be associated with. Source: (John)
Also this has lead to a new frontier of marketing – Communication Between Brands.
The tweets came from far and wide such as , normal people, Celebrities, etc to Big Brands, Tech Crunch,
Starbucks, Gillette among others. And showed that social media can be used for collaborating as well as
competing.
This ad Campaign came as Creative, Efficient, Strategic way of communicating the brand personality to
the masses. Source: (Griffin)
Campaign Analysis
The objectives of the Old Spice campaign may have been two fold:
• To increase sales of Old Spice.
• Rebrand the product for a new generation of consumers and change perceptions of an "old
brand".
There are many viral campaigns that have had a direct impact in sales or have increased market share, so
that's not to say a viral strategy isn't effective. For example, the Nike Chalkbot campaign coincided with a
46% jump in sales, generating $4m for Lance Armstrong's foundation, according to Adweek.
In addition, the Volkswagen Fun Theory campaign resulted in "VW's overall share of the Swedish market
tripling to more than 13% in the first six months of this year, and sales rose 58%, per DDB Stockholm."

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However, with regards to Old Spice, it is not only sales but also the shift in brand perception (in terms of
rejuvenating Old Spice for a younger generation of consumers) that may be truly indicative of success.
What Old Spice did differently, is that it targeted the most highly popular and influential Social Media
users directly – their videos spoke to individuals, and this generated their interest, and helped to make
their campaign an incredibly viral success.
It is a good idea and the creative is funny, but there are several things that make this campaign stand out
as a way to refresh the tired and sagging Old Spice brand. They come down to the basics of running a
good campaign- from strategy to creative, but most importantly, the level of integration between
television, online and social media in this campaign stands out. Unlike many other consumer goods
campaigns that fall short when it comes to everyone collaborating, this is one of those few campaigns that
seems like it was actually approached holistically by one team that didn't just chase the trend of the
month, but used the platforms of TV, Twitter and YouTube primarily in the ways they were best suited.
Here's a short summary with some key brand campaign lessons to be taken away from this effort:
• Smart Strategy - The message behind this campaign is simple - show a great looking guy and
tell women that he is "the man their man could smell like." The strategy was based on the premise
that when it comes to bath products for guys, a huge purchaser is likely to be women - so instead
of turning women into sex objects as Axe does to reach the single guys, Old Spice set their target
as including and even speaking directly to women.
• Creative Execution - The creative execution of the "Old Spice Man" using actor Isaiah Mustafa
has been a hit, from his funny rapid paced TV spots and offered an instantly memorable pitch for
Old Spice that people remembered and even mimicked.
• Cross Media Integration - Moving from a TV spot, the team at W&K behind this integrated
social media in a way that is often lacking. For Old Spice, they are responding to tweets directly
through videos, letting people create their own versions of the ad, engaging on Facebook and the
numbers are indicative of the success.
The Campaign Execution
Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director at Wieden says that the primary differentiator between this
campaign and others is how closely technical and social media specialists are working with the creative
team.
In the studio, there was a team of social media people, the Old Spice community manager, a social media
strategist, a couple of technical people, and a producer. An application scanned the Internet looking for
mentions and allowed them to look at the influence of those people and also what they’ve said. They were
working in collaboration with the creative team that were there to pick out the messages that:
1. Have creative opportunity to produce amazing content;
OR
2. Have the ability to then embed themselves in an interesting or virally relevant community.

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So it was a team of creatives, tech geeks, marketers and writers that gathered in an undisclosed location in
Portland, Oregon and produced 200+ short comedic YouTube videos about Old Spice, in real time. They
leveraged Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and blogs.
It is well done and it appeals to peoples' egos - but there is something more, too. It feels very
personalized, even if it wasn't directed at you. Those people that got responses, and many people who
didn't, have Tweeted, Facebooked and otherwise shared links to the videos back out across their social
networks.
The videos aren't being posted in chronological order immediately after the Tweets and comments they
are in reply to. They get moved up and down a queue in a deliberate, orchestrated, if very fast way.
Timeline
The first Old Spice TV commercial (The Man Your Man could Smell like) was debuted in time for the
Super Bowl in February 2010. The commercial was a success on YouTube, racking up nearly 12.2m
views on the site according to an article written by AdWeek on July 12. The ad also won a
prestigious Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix at the International Advertising Festival, as AdWeek also
notes.
Later, in late June / early July 2010, Old Spice released two new adverts, both featuring Isaiah Mustapha,
once in a hot-tub, and the other involving a manly moustache and aboat.
Then on Tuesday, July 13th, Mr Old Spice launched the following cryptic message to his Twitter
followers:
Figure 7:Twitter Teaser Ad
The viral campaign - created by agency Wieden + Kennedy - ran for just three days, with the first videos
published on July 12th, and the final message posted July 14th evening. In just seven days since it
launched, it's achieved the following:
• A total of 200+ individual video responses have been posted to the Old Spice YouTube
channel.

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• So far, the videos have attracted 35.7 million individual views, as of 9am, Monday July 19th.
• The final video reply, addressed to "everyone," has amassed almost 2.5 million views and over 5,800
comments alone.
• The Old Spice channel was the most viewed channel on YouTube last week, and is now the third
most subscribed channel ever in the site's "sponsor" category.
• Total upload views for the channel, a metric that includes the original TV ads, currently stand at over
92 million.
• At midday on Wednesday the brand's official Twitter account had 32,000 followers.
By July 19th morning that number had more than doubled to 94,000 followers, and the account was
featured on over 2,300 Twitter lists.
The campaign has also been making use of Facebook, encouraging users to pose questions, and posting
the video responses on its official Facebook page. Some of those videos have already recorded upwards
of 2,000 "likes," and the brand page itself has amassed over 630,000 likes.
According to Wieden + Kennedy, the campaign was created using a team of around 35 people working 12
hours a day for its three day duration.
Campaign Stats on Twitter
Figure 8: Popularity of Ads in 24 hours

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Figure 9:Number of views and responses for Old Spice Ads
Figure 10: Old Spice Twitter Statistics

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Figure 11:Old Spice Blog Coverage
Figure 12: Old Spice Search on Twitter

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After the third day of activity, Isaiah Mustafa and Old Spice have bid farewell to their ‘Internet friends’
and recorded their final YouTube video.
We Are Social, wrote about how the viewing figures looked like.
• Total videos uploaded: 183
o 12 July, 2010: 29 videos uploaded
• Combined viewing figures: 10,954,096
• Average video view (mean value): 59,858 views
• Median value: 40,536 views
• Most watched video: 511,694 views
Figure 13: Old Spice Tweets

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Since 13 July 2010 there’s been about 175K Old Spice related tweets, and they were broken down as
follows:
Figure 14: Types of Tweets in Twitter
26% were retweets, which indicates how readily people passed around the content online. Meanwhile 8%
were @replies, and the overwhelming majority of those were directed at @oldspice, showing that people
were quite keen to get involved. The remaining ‘regular tweets’ were, by and large, people commenting
about the ‘old spice guy’/’old spice man’ videos as they watched, and shared the YouTube links. A
cursory read of these Tweets were found to be extremely positive, which probably comes as no surprise.
A word cloud, drawn from a sample of 10,000 Tweets from 13 July – 15 July tends to support this:
Figure 15: Word Cloud for Old Spice on Twitter

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It’s worth noting that words like hilarious, like, love and awesome are among the 50 most prominent
words of the 157,849 rendered in the word cloud. This definitely implies a positive response to the
campaign and the overall brand association for Old Spice.
Campaign Stats on Youtube
Figure 16: Most Viewed Videos on Youtube
Figure 17: Most Viewed Channels on Youtube

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Campaign Stats on Facebook
Figure 18:Number of fans of Old Spice
Old Spice Facebook fans increased from 563k to 592k, so about a 29k bump since the launch of the social
campaign.
Referring Site Click(s)
www.youtube.com 9,585
www.oldspice.com 968
Email Clients, IM, AIR Apps, and Direct 537
Figure 19: Old Spice Twitter followers increased from 8k to 66k in 2 days.

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So, 58k new Twitter followers, 29k new Facebook fans, 6.4MM views of the campaign video + 5MM
views of all responses in 48h.
• Old Spice accounted for 75 percent of conversations in the category in the first three months of 2010.
• Half the conversations came from women.
• The YouTube/Twitter social media response campaign was “the fastest-growing and most popular
interactive campaign in history.”
• More people watched its videos in 24 hours than those who watched Obama’s presidential victory
speech.
• Total video views reached 40 million in a week.
• Campaign impressions: 1.4 billion.
• Since the campaign launched, Old Spice Bodywash sales are up 27 percent; in the last three months up.
55 percent; and in the last month up 107 percent*.
*These stats are for the entire campaign, mostly TV and traditional. The sales numbers were taken from
June, before the social media component even launched.
Brand Analysis
Brand personality
On the shelves since 1938, Old Spice had long been associated with the past and elderly gentlemen. It was
positioned as a masculine brand with the baseline " mark of a man'. Old Spice had created a niche for
itself as a product for older, more serious men with television commercials with the somewhat rustic
imagery of returning sailors.
Under P&G, Old Spice reinvented itself and entered into new categories like deodorants and body wash,
updated its identity and communication, and intelligently left its original cologne basically alone so as not
to confuse the older man. It won over a new, younger, sexier audience without alienating its older, more
traditional core. It adopted a more masculine version of the metro sexual and made a statement that caring
about the way that you look and smell might be a good thing.
The latest Old Spice positioning is “The man your man could smell like”. Their target is young guys
between the ages of 12 to 34.
Brand identity
Old spice was introduced along the colonial theme. Hence the nautical theme was chosen and sailing ship
especially Colonial Sailing ship was used as the trademark. The Original ships that were used were Grand
Turk and Friendship.

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Figure 20: ‘Old’ Old Spice
Figure 21: ‘New’ Old Spice
The new old spice theme revolves around a shirtless, incredible smelling old spice guy (actor Isaiah
Mustafa), youtube and a marathon of videos. Over the period, it definitely created a brand identity that
people will be interested and excited to engage with.
Brand Relationships
Behavioral loyalty
Till 2002, Old Spice used to rule the roost with its unparalleled offering of aftershaves, colognes and
deodorants. The market space had absence of any good competitor brand under the similar offerings as
that of Old Spice. However, with the advent of AXE by Unilever and it’s positioning of AXE as not just a
smell related product but rather a promise of sexual conquest.
This had severe impact on the loyalty of young people towards Old Spice. Qualitative research with the
target confirmed the unfortunate situation: Axe was sexy, modern and cool; Old Spice, meanwhile,
was…well…old.
Therefore, the brand loyalty of Old Spice with the aged people remained high. But with the young people,
generally the larger buying group, it took a beating on the face off with AXE and was no longer numero
uno brand in North America.
Brand substitutability
There are no brand substitutes for the category.

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Active engagement
Old Spice is using viral marketing as a tool to develop active engagement with the audience. For the
same, it has engaged the agency Wieden + Kennedy to create a new media campaign. A poster campaign
was launched and Old Spice first commercial was broadcasted in February 2010 on the main US TV
channels during the Super Bowl, THE sports event of the year in the US. Full of humour and charm, this
first video won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in June 2010. After
a few months, the agency successfully launched the campaign on social media sites. It generated a lot of
interest and the results are demonstrated by the increase in number of sales.
Brand strategies:
Created by the Shulton Company in 1937, Old Spice gained popularity during World War II and has been
an icon in men’s grooming ever since.
Proctor and Gamble (P&G) acquired the Old Spice fragrance brand in the 1990. Old Spice had been
advertised in previous years with television commercials with the somewhat rustic imagery of returning
sailors. Customers consisted mostly of elderly men, however, and the brand was thought to be in decline.
The immediate practical value of the Old Spice brand acquisition was that it offered P&G a quick
presence in a new product category, namely men’s fragrances. The brand had a managerial value in that it
offered an opportunity for brand extensions in the broader category of grooming products.
Old Spice provided certain opportunities for brand leverage, but, in fact, this necessitated that P&G
reposition the brand to appeal to a younger market. This compelled rather costly promotional programs.
Numerous extensions of the Old Spice brand name (as well as additional sub-brand names) were
accomplished in the process. In 1993, for example, the Old Spice High Endurance deodorant was
introduced. Other products, such as body wash, also took on the Old Spice name. The Old Spice brand
did, in fact, help P&G increase sales, particularly in deodorants – growing faster than the category and
thus stealing share from competitors. Old Spice products reached sales of $86 million in the deodorant
category, a number two rank by 2003
Brand Equity
Aaker is best known as developing a perspective on branding that centered on understanding how to
develop the “equity” of the brand as a useful managerial tool. Brand equity has considerable relevance to
financial managers, especially important in mergers and acquisitions. As brands have been recognized for
their economic value, companies have sought out brands to buy for attractive managerial opportunities
that they offer. Strong brands are considered attractive since they offer the ability to be “leveraged” or
extended to other logical domains.
While it is widely accepted that intangible assets are the major drivers of corporate value and growth in
many or even most economic sectors, the measurement of these assets has eluded accountants and
financial analysts attempting to set specific values for brands. Determining the dollar value of a brand is
not likely to become an exact science given that opportunities in managing brands are interpreted quite
differently. Brand equity values vary according to opportunities and risks that are perceived and
understood by managers, especially the value that brands hold in being able to increase demand. Some
brands are thought to be attractive due to their potential uses other than simply providing a recognized
name.
Proctor and Gamble (P&G) acquired the Old Spice fragrance brand in the 1990. Old Spice had been
advertised in previous years with television commercials with the somewhat rustic imagery of returning

Mega Hit
19
sailors. Customers consisted mostly of elderly men, however, and the brand was thought to be in decline.
The immediate practical value of the Old Spice brand acquisition was that it offered P&G a quick
presence in a new product category, namely men's fragrances. The brand had a managerial value in that it
offered an opportunity for brand extensions in the broader category of grooming products.
Old Spice provided certain opportunities for brand leverage, but, in fact, this necessitated that P&G
reposition the brand to appeal to a younger market. This compelled rather costly promotional programs.
Numerous extensions of the Old Spice brand name (as well as additional sub-brand names) were
accomplished in the process. In 1993, for example, the Old Spice High Endurance deodorant was
introduced. Other products, such as body wash, also took on the Old Spice name. The Old Spice brand
did, in fact, help P&G increase sales, particularly in deodorants – growing faster than the category and
thus stealing share from competitors. Old Spice products reached sales of $86 million in the deodorant
category, a number two rank by 2003.
Was the Old Spice brand acquisition a successful strategy? Since the Old Spice brand required
considerable advertising expenses, certainly managers expected an immediate payoff in terms of sales to
justify these costs. Assessments of brands through the equity approach stress value that accrues as a result
of consistent marketing investment in the brand, and the potential that brands offer to managers in
developing sales and profitability over time. When sales and profits only accrue over long time periods,
however, brand strategies can be difficult to assess.
The equity brand logic, utilizing analogies from finance, stresses the ability to “leverage” the brand to
other products. From this perspective, a portfolio of brands is managed for the “long run” to build their
equity. While equity brand management approaches are directed toward understanding how brand value
accrues over time and can increase company profitability, outcomes depend critically upon management
actions, not simply the brand name.
Aaker proposes several factors that relate to valuations of brand equity, but these may be not sufficiently
specific and measurable to offer a concise financial evaluation tool or guide management actions. They
may not provide a good means to assess how a brand is able to increase demand, and thus form a solid
basis for many marketing decisions. Moreover, some brands are associated with non-profit organizations
– it may be questionable to measure their value solely in financial terms. The concept of brand equity,
while important, relies upon and requires considerable managerial judgment as a basis for decisions.
One needs to note that the Old Spice brand may have offered P&G some opportunities, yet all of these did
not materialize – every extension of the Old Spice name to a product was not successful. Old Spice Cool
Contact wipes, for example, failed miserably. Promotions were not supported by rather meager sales
results for the category.
The importance of brand management issues can be questioned, particularly given that profits have
declined at P&G for several years. Many brands may not, in fact, be very profitable. Some companies
may have developed a portfolio of brands acquired through mergers or acquisitions, yet many brands
frequently do not deliver any measurable added financial value.
Decisions about using the Old Spice brand must be put in another context, however. The Old Spice brand
offered a type of “leverage” different from that of simply extending the brand name to other products.
Brand leverage should not simply be conceived as an efficient means of establishing a name on a product
that customers can easily recognize or recall.

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P&G research into behavior in the men's grooming category suggested that men's grooming behavior
could be aided by certain products. Managers “leveraged” the Old Spice name in sense that the brand was
used as a means to affect men's grooming behavior. The goal was to advance the adoption of products
such as body wash and facial wipes, and the brand was a means to “represent” these behaviors as
consistent with the imagery of the now “sporty” Old Spice brand. The brand provided a representational
framework to affect behavior. Brands, as meaningful representations, provide a means to evoke or suggest
particular behaviors. Brands have meanings that can be “leveraged” in the support of product and service
offerings.
Figure 22: Kapferer’s Brand Prism

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Bibliography
Borden, M. (n.d.). The Team Who Made Old Spice Smell Good Again Reveals What's Behind Mustafa's
Towel. Retrieved August 13, 2010, from Fast Company:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1670314/old-spice-youtube-videos-wieden
Griffin, J. (n.d.). http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com. Retrieved August 13, 2010, from Ignite Social Media
- the original Social Media agency: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/an-open-letter-old-spice/
John. (n.d.). Acappella's Digital treats. Retrieved August 13, 2010, from Old Spice's Twitter Effect on Axe:
http://blog.acappellamedia.com/2010/07/19/old-spices-twitter-effect-on-axe/
Keath, J. (n.d.). Behind the curtains of Old Spice's Viral Video Mega Hit. Retrieved August 13, 2010, from
Social Fresh: http://socialfresh.com/old-spice-viral-videos/

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