Need a way to change the way consumers view your product? Looking at successful marketing campaigns of the past is a great place to start. One in particular to model is Old Spice. Prior to their 2010 Super Bowl commercial, Old Spice had been known as a company that sells deodorant and body wash to your grandfather. This was mainly due to the way they marketed their product. After realizing the need to increase market share, Old Spice launched a marketing campaign in 2010 directed towards the younger generation and the response was tremendous. Old Spice showed an attractive man telling the female audience that their man could smell like him if he uses Old Spice. Within 30 days of the launch of the campaign, Old Spice saw over 40 million views on YouTube, and a 107% increase in body wash sales.
What are the takeaways from this campaign, you ask? The first is the way they marketed to their new target audience. In the past, Old Spice was advertising to the older, 40-60-year-old market. After assessing market trends, they switched their target market to users who are in the 18-34 year range. This is much easier said than done. When switching up the target market to this extent, a company needs to completely revamp its marketing strategy. One way that Old Spice achieved this is by using a mix of marketing appeals that the younger generation responds well to. These appeals being humor and sex. You might be wondering, why would they use a male sex symbol if their target market young men? This is because research has shown that women purchase nearly 70% of all male toiletry products. By using appeals that are both male and female friendly, the new campaign saw an impressive response allowing the video to go viral almost immediately.
The next takeaway from Old Spice is what they did after launching the campaign. After the flood of responses came in, Old Spice decided to interact with their fans in the form of questions for the Old Spice man. Thousands of questions were asked and 180 video responses by the Old Spice man were created which included a marriage proposal and frequent exchanges from celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Demi Moore, Alysa Milano, and others. This kind of frequent interaction is what gets people talking about your brand and a major reason for the success of this campaign. Many businesses assume that once they’ve created a successful advertisement or campaign, that the work is done. Wrong. It is important to interact with viewers on social media platforms if you want to create a long-lasting reaction that people will remember.
To sum all of this up, human beings have short attention spans. One minute they see a great advertisement, the next minute it’s forgotten. Half of the battle is creating an effective advertisement but maybe the most challenging step is the way you get people to remember it. Social media is a great platform to respond to questions, build on previous successes, and keep the intended brand image fresh in the minds of the consumers.
Need help with advertising? Transformation Marketing can help! As an online marketing agency near Lincoln, NE, we offer a variety of services that can help grow your business – web development, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine optimization, blog writing, programmatic advertising, video production, and much more. Please visit our website or call us at 402-788-2896 to learn more!