Old Spice – the archetype of THE integrated marketing campaign?
July 2010 in the US was marked by the Old Spice wave. This 72 year-old P&G brand comprehends a large product range, from (grandpa’s, as it is widely perceived) Cologne to deodorants, through body wash products.
The launch
To rebuild a brand awareness and consciousness, Old Spice contracted 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.
The link between social media, crowdsourcing, creating targeted audiences, generating buzz, and greater online distribution of media assets is beginning to transform the PR and Media Relations industry. While this has been in a growth mode in the US, its rare to see it being acted upon in Europe.
Yesterday, Usain Bolt the fastest man in the world, took part in a charity event on the organised by watchmaking brand Hublot, for whom he is an ambassador. He was on the starting line in front of the Hublot’s Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland pitting himself against 10 child athletes. Hublot had agreed to donate 10,000 US dollars for each child who reached the finish line before “Lightning Bolt”, and ended up paying $100,000 USD to the Usain Bolt Foundation. LABEL vigorously supported the event in creating new channels and online communications through social media channels, assisting the WorldTelevision ENG, video streaming and media relations team to further the reach and awareness event.
Companies and brands have been quick to adapt to social marketing principals and delve beyond the banner advertisement. Online communities present a significant opportunity to engage people around a topic they care about. Whilst many brands are building their own communities online such as Nike+, BeingGirl and Lego, human beings will spend their time and attention across multiple communities. So how does a brand capitalize on their own community and participate in other like minded communities?
The video was made by netinfluence at Lift 10 where Maria was giving a workshop about the challenges brands face to edge their way into the sacred space of conversation. Download her presentation on Slideshare and retrieve the pictures of her workshop on our Facebook.
The Swiss commerce and economics magazine Bilan named LABEL as one of the 50 Success stories for Swiss companies characterised by their spirit of innovation and their original approaches to the challenges they take on. Being the recipient of this honour, we at LABEL, couldn’t agree more. The shift in consumer media consumption patterns due to digital convergence is having profound changes on all publishers of media from music, print, TV and advertisers and it requires an innovative approach. The importance and growth of digital media through the internet, mobile, gaming networks, digital display advertising, kiosks, and other devices is undisputed. Digital media surrounds us everywhere.
” I was persuaded that it was necessary to associate marketing and new technologies back in the 1990’s . Today, the rise of the digital and social media marketing and the importance of social networks in advertising and communications confirms this.” Arnaud Grobet (41 years) founded LABEL in 2000. Since then, the LABEL group has been a leader and has been at the forefront of this change. In 2008, the company acquired MARVEL Communications, which added its experience as a leader in the multimedia and internet communications to the LABEL group.
The Secret of its success: ” During ten years people used to looked at me as though I was crazy. Today we are ahead of our competitors.”
In the past year Facebook saw an unprecedented growth worldwide and there is no current indication that this growth will stop in 2010 or beyond. (New estimates show it is fast approaching 500 million users.) Brands, companies and organisations cannot ignore the network effect driving Facebook’s and other social networks adoption across the world. Its no longer a matter of asking whether they should be involved in this media it’s a matter of when and how they can becoe involved. LABEL recommends that elements of social media marketing and communications should be included as digital touchpoints that support traditional communications channels for any brand, company or organization today. (more…)
I think this article is a must read – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8590306.stm
At the F8 conference in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a number of products he says are aimed at putting users and their friends at the “centre of the web”. It will surely work on the further unseating of Google being the site or service synonymous with internet usage and the webs most used or visited service.
Every person involved in marketing, communications and web like to try and predict the future. The expression 3.0 is already used for the contextual web but have we already exploited all the opportunities that the current technologies offer us? In regard to marketing, the future first passed by the web, blogs and then social media. The latter opened possibilities of direct contacts with the consumers. Thus web-orientated agencies use social media as new direct marketing tools and don’t systematically think they must be opposed to traditional communications tools but rather consider them as being very efficient complements that aren’t necessarily expensive if well used.
The most important reason for the meteoric growth of Social Networks is something called “The Network Effect”. This equates to a tipping point when the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. In the past year, we have witnessed one such rising star, Facebook ( but it begs the question is it the only one? ). It took 5 years for Facebook to reach 150 million users and then a further 8 months to double that number. Today, according to Facebook Statistics, it has 400 million users. In 2009 we saw Facebook become almost ubiquitous in every conversation swirling around Social Media and social networks. It was the year in which Facebook exploded into a global phenomena, dominating the Social Networking market worldwide as it became an international social network giant. While its dominated the english speaking press and displaced MySpace its not the only Social Network in the world.
To believe that Facebook or english speaking social networks are the only “players in Social networks” worldwide would be nothing short of one sided owed to very narrow perspective of the hyper connected world we live in. According to Wikipedia, there are some 1.5 billion members worldwide. Across the world there a number of culturally, language, local and regionally driven social networks , that both singularly and accumulatively pose the question whether Facebook can dominate the world in Social Networking. As startling as it is, the ” Facebook Network Effect” is not only a Facebook phenomena and its also occurring across other Social Networks in the world , albeit with different speeds.
At the time of Avatar, of augmented reality, of multiple web identities, etc and in a world where everything seems to become virtual, what place is left for what’s real? The first and most important one, of course.
Most of online successes are but a reflection of reality. Our marketing strategies, now called 2.0 strategies, are based on our emotions, experiences, reactions and not on those of machines or computer programms.
In the past year Facebook saw an unprecedented growth worldwide and there is no current indication that this growth will stop in 2010 or beyond. (New estimates show it is fast approaching 500 million users.) Brands, companies and organisations cannot ignore the network effect driving Facebook’s and other social networks adoption across the world. Its no longer a matter of asking whether they should be involved in this media it’s a matter of when and how they can becoe involved. LABEL recommends that elements of social media marketing and communications should be included as digital touchpoints that support traditional communications channels for any brand, company or organization today.
