If you haven't seen it before, please take a look at the quintessential viral commercial. The commercial played during the SuperBowl and immediately became a viral hit. Now, it has 13 million views on YouTube, and Old Spice and its ad agency have not been quiet about their intentions to take advantage of its popularity.
On Tuesday, Old Spice's Twitter account was commandeered by Isaiah Mustafa (the Old Spice Guy), with the following: "Today could be just like the other 364 days you log into twitter, or maybe the Old Spice man shows up @OldSpice." Now, there's an entire YouTube Channel dedicated to the Old Spice Guy's responses to YouTube and Twitter questions fielded online. He's already offered answers to celebs like Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, Demi Moore, and the Huffington Post, and was the subject of a promoted trending topic on Twitter...Incidentally, he probably would've become an organically trending topic anyway.
The ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy, is getting a significant amount of press themselves for this brilliant stunt. So what is it about this guy? What's the secret to going viral? What are W+K, Isaiah Mustafa, and Old Spice doing right?
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4 comments:
I agree, there's so much to love about this campaign. I spent a good chunk of time watching the personalized videos. I wondered how they churned them out so quickly, just like I wondered how they shot the original commercial in just one take (http://tinyurl.com/yex9a8b).
In addition to making people wonder, "how did they do that?" I think another big part of its viral-ness is the fact that Old Spice did not take itself too seriously with this campaign. It's a parody of manliness, which one might think would be dangerous for men's deodorant brand. The company took a risk by turning tradition on its head, and it's paying off.
While we're on the topic of trending web videos...have you seen this "Double Rainbow" YouTube video? I just saw it today but apparently it's blown up on the web after Jimmy Kimmel Tweeted about it. Basically, it's a video of a man getting really excited and then weeping over a rainbow. It also sounds like he's on something.
Anyway Mashable (http://mashable.com/2010/07/08/double-rainbow/) posted the original video as well as an interview with the guy and then a hilarious "Double Rainbow Song" that someone remixed.
But again a pretty random video that all of a sudden becomes viral. Is it just because of Kimmel or would it have become a fad all on its own? Because the original video was actually uploaded in January. I guess it we knew the exact formula for a viral video, then we'd make some big bucks of our own.
Kristin -- word is that Isaiah Mustafa and the Old Spice crew took a full day to record response after response. Pretty intense and a good commitment from Old Spice, and Mustafa.
Allison -- I can't believe I just watched 3 minutes and 29 seconds of that. A follow up question to 'What is it about a video that makes it go viral?' might be: 'What is it about watching viral videos that makes me feel so dumb?'
Yeah, good commitment for sure!
I didn't hear about the Double Rainbow video until a friend who saw Kimmel's Tweet told me about it. Days later, I started hearing random people in the lunch room at work, at parties, etc, randomly exclaiming, "Woa, double rainbow, all the way." It had officially gone viral. But that's a really good question about whether it would have gone viral on its own without Kimmel. I think, in many cases, a celebrity Tweet-endorsement, getting picked up by blogs, and then, finally, coverage by mainstream media is usually what makes something blow up.
Remember the Three Wolf Moon tshirt? (http://tinyurl.com/3y3gua3). It was a growing joke on Amazon for quite a while. Then people started linking to it. Then mainstream media started picking it up. And then it wound up on The Office, when Dwight wore it. And now, the makers behind that silly t-shirt are making money off of people who want to be in on the joke.
As Allison said, it would be nice to be able to bottle that formula.
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