Hello Internet. How are you? Fantastic …

What a fun day to be on the Internet.

Old Spice has done more for its brand appeal in the last week, double it in the last 24 hours, than any one could have imagined.

It all started with this:

12 million views since February.

Then, last week:

5.2 million views since June 29th, quickly becoming a social media favoriate. Then today… A surprise. It started on Twitter and quickly headed to Reddit, Digg, various blogs and beyond – The Old Spice Man was taking ‘requests’.

And boy, did he respond. Kevin Rose, Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen, Perez Hitlon, The Huffington Post, Gizmodo, GQ, Starbucks, a guy proposing to his wife (She said yes) and TONS of other ‘regular’ people. Old Spice Man had witty, in character, remarks for them all.

The target wasn’t just individuals but also communities, who similarly responded in droves. Over 2,000 upvotes on Reddit (A handful of Redditors got their question answer by The Man) and over 4,500 Diggs (The Man sent a sick Kevin Rose a get well video).

Viral marketing genius.

All it took was a simple set (Which I’m sure they still had from filming last weeks commercial), one actor doing one-take responses. Throw in a couple of writers and an intern or two monitoring Twitter / Digg / Reddit / Youtube to bring users into the fun and… boom! Success.

This wouldn’t have worked if the original videos hadn’t blown up like they did. Even though the first two did hit, the creators further ensured their success by employing a smorgasbord of viral plans into one Uber Viral; Foundation videos (the commercials), fresh content (the Man’s responses) and massive community outreach. A well coordinated attack with a little luck (having Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Rose and Ryan Seacreat Tweet about you – whose followers total 9.6 million – would cost a LOT of money). Finally, to really make sure this became huge, Old Spice was a sponsored trending topic on Twitter.

This is a two-way conversation done right.

A random user (aka the ad agency in disguise) wasn’t submitting to the various communities. It was The Man himself (Well, probably one of those interns, but still). It was cohesive, authentic, well planned, and most importantly – ENTERTAINING.

Todays success isn’t only helping Old Spice. Isaiah Mustafa, the actor who plays Old Spice Man, got over 600 new Facebook fans and 4,000 Twitter followers today according to FanPageList. The gift that keeps on giving. Isaiah is now a bonafide Internet legend. Where will we see him next?

Lets just hope Old Spice knows when to leave a good thing alone and not beat this into the ground.

Published by Nicholas Robinson

I am creating the future.

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