Last February Procter & Gamble launched a campaign, created by the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, called The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (aka Old Spice Man). The rest is internet history. The ad has become wildely popular and the original video has raked in over 15 million views on youtube.
Regardless of the ad’s success, marketing tracking agency WARC reports that sales of the specific product the Old Spice Man is holding are down by 7%. Some agree and explain, others refute.
One thing worth looking at, apart from the sales data, is how many people have been searching for “old spice” and how the campaign impacted the search volume. Below is the timeline of how often people have been searching for “old spice” in Google (from Google trends).
Notice how the campaign only hit the viral sweet-spot in July. According to BrandWeek, the 7% figure is for 52 weeks ending in June the 13th 2010. The viral effect only takes off in July, which isn’t included in the data.
The campaign’s impact on search volume from February to June might not be reflected in sales, but the jury is still out on the impact of the viral aspect, which only just took off.
We were discussing this at work. The one thing we realized was there is no call to action. At the end of the clip, there is no … “Visit oldspice.com for more info” or a button that says “Order yours now”. The videos got everyone’s attention, but there was no “next steps” to help the viewers translate that excitment to sales.
It just goes to show that the basics of marketing are important no matter what the medium.
I agree that the lack of “call to action” might be a problem. Also, when watching the ad I didn’t really realise what he was doing or holding, even though I enjoyed watching the ad. Took me a good while to realise it was body wash.
Having said that, I need further confirmation before I believe that raising the profile of a brand won’t have positive effects on sales. What we need is world-wide sales data for a few months following July – and decide then.