Over the past 24 hours 4 of my friends have posted the ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like‘ Old Spice commercial to their Facebook profile and it has become a huge trending topic on Twitter since this campaign was launched. Welcome to the fast paced world of social media advertising.
This video has received over 13 million views and climbing. Not just that, but the foolishly macho Old Spice man, actor Isaiah Mustafa, is responding personally to tweets, via YouTube video clips. What brilliant marketing – creating episodic content in real time! Normally, my feminist mind is critical of gender stereotyping but Mustafa’s preposterous manner is just so over-the-top and ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh – ‘Smell Like a Man, Man’.
This style of ironic hyper-masculinity reminds me of the Dos XX ads that were circulating last year but Old Spice took it further by having the character interact with his audience. According to Read Write Web, Iain Tait, the mastermind behind this campaign, brought in technical and social media specialists to work hand in hand with the creative team. They worked round the clock analyzing tweets, shooting and editing on-the-spot, and getting it back onto the web in real-time.
Perhaps Old Spice has paved the way for a new kind of interactive, social media marketing. At the very least – ‘Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I’m on a horse”.