Old Spice, New Marketing

The Old Spice commercials have been a viral sensation on Youtube, with over 12 million views and rising. They've made dozens of videos responding to comments, and it's been featured on TV and radio shows. Only, according to Brandweek, Old Spice sales are down by 7% (though P&G says sales for the entire brand are up). So P&G went to a lot of effort, and pioneered some fast-response high-quality commercials for social networks, and in the end didn't seem to get anything out of it. (The reasons why make for interesting speculation here.)

There are some lessons here for guerrilla marketers, even though this is not the sort of campaign you'd undertake without millions of dollars to spend. First, you can get a lot of attention by being clever; this effectively leverages your marketing spending into many more impressions than you'd get otherwise. So putting some creativity into your marketing campaign can pay off. Second, you do need to make sure the product and the message you're sending are worthy of the effort. Can you really expect to increase sales, or is your market not interested? Is your message the right one?

How do you create a compelling marketing message on the cheap? A clever tag line and a Photoshopped image can cost little more than the price you pay for the ad insertion. A little more spending might get you a model, or a professional photographer, or someone with mad Photoshop skillz. Ultimately, though, you have to have a clever idea, and the ability to determine whether or not it will actually have the effect you want.