Web Video..How To Get Amazing Results…While Smelling Like A Man

Some of you might be familiar with the not-quite-so recent Old Spice Campaign starring Isaiah Mustafa (yum!) as “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”  check out the clip here:

Funny, and on-point a 30 second (there’s also a 15 second) that grabs your attention and never let’s it go.  Not only did Wieden + Kennedy (the marketing agency who created this ad) broadcast this commercial on television, (Superbowl I believe), but the best part is they also created a whole social media campaign around the commercial, and sequels as well.  Before I get into more details about the social marketing piece, let me throw out some numbers at you.

To date, the original commercial has received over 20 million views on YouTube alone! In the last 8 months! crazy! There have been countless parodies of the commercials and who knows how many references (including mine) to this commercial on multiple platforms. The Return of the Man Your Man Should Smell Like has garnered over 15 million views. That is some pretty amazing numbers.

How was the social media campaign done? Look at me, now look at yourself, now back to me again..according to the article by Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read Write Web http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php Wieden + Kennedy collaborated with Isaiah Mustafa to create 87  short videos about Old Spice that were created in response to questions that some of the most influential social media sites around were invited to ask Old Spice Man.  The result: another 4 million views and counting.

Gotta say, what a fantastic example of leveraging video from TV to web to interactive all within the same campaign.  A lesson for us all non?

The Main Goal…when it comes to web/online videos

Lately, I have had the opportunity to work with a couple of really easygoing and utterly fantastic clients, and one of the issues that I find keeps coming up over and over again is…. why are we even creating this online in the first place? and who is it for? You see because video is such a image-based medium a lot of people (myself included) want to make sure we include this really “cool” thing  mostly because it’s so “cool” man, which is great but at the end of the day when the question is posed, okay what else do you want to include in this video to ensure that it speaks to your intended audience? there’s a blank stare and uncomfortable silence.

I think it’s really important before beginning the wild adventures of web/online video production to remember what the end goal is at the end of the day and not to lose sight because you are distracted by the cool stuff. Be forewarned that if you forget your overall goal and the video looks fabulous, but the message that you wanted to convey isn’t crystal clear, then ultimately that video just becomes a “nice” piece of work. That’s mucho dinero thrown at a great piece of work that won’t necessarily allow you to reach your objective.

A really great example is the new web-only Kellogg’s National Breakfast Week commercial.  (Can’t find the video on YouTube so I am linking to it via the REALSEO article from which I found it)  http://www.reelseo.com/kelloggs-video-advertisement/    Short simple storyline about the consequences of not eating breakfast, and to consider Kellogg’s Corn Flakes as a breakfast choice. Here’s what I like about it, it grabs your attention from the beginning, it uses cool elements (the split screen), it’s short and sweet, but more importantly it sticks to it’s overall objective. Why is this video being done? oh okay to eat Corn Flakes for breakfast, great! It doesn’t have to be rocket science it just needs to have a clear point about why your doing this and for whom.

Overall, to avoid wasting a lot of hard-earned marketing dollars when considering online video remember the following two rules:

1. Why are you creating this video in the first place?

2. Who are you creating this for, and what do they want to watch?

A little food for thought for ya!

To see some online video samples that I’ve created check out my site www.sofinamedia.com