Assumptions kill creativity
In this guest post, Gual Barwell disagrees that the sales success of the Old Spice social media campaign was overstated.
Yesterday’s post from Cathie McGinn suggested the Old Spice campaign failed to connect with consumers. Based on the facts and figures, I disagree.
What Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy has done and done phenomenally well is to create a franchise.
Wieden + Kennedy created a compelling piece of content that was spreadable and connected with an incredibly large audience.
Ans it just got them another two posts on a media industry blog in Australia almost a year later.
I think it’s important to note that I’ve categorically said that the campaign did connect with audiences. You will hear no quibbling from me about the creative merit of the work- I’ve said how much I loved it. My beef is about the discrepancy between awareness and sales- which, ultimately is what we’re in the business of doing: shifting units. P & G sell aftershave, not content.
Would the campaign have delivered sales without the voucher component? Probably not. Does that mean vouchers are a critical mechanism for converting awareness to cold hard dosh? Perhaps someone could write a guest post about that…
Ron Campbell of W+K and I have discussed this separately, and I’m happy to concede that the campaign has delivered in some crucial ways, though in my view it missed a massive opportunity to do something truly radical and allow consumers to contribute to product development.
I’m really happy that there’s been so much intelligent debate though. Conversations worth having.
ass out of u and me. Nicely written
the only thing that matters is sales
If Old Spice was my business and I was spending my own money on this campaign all I would want to know is if it made me more money. All the YouTube views in the world mean nothing if the campaign doesn’t generate a return on investment.
So far they haven’t published any meaningful results so I think it’s hard to say either way.
“Based on the facts and figures, I disagree”
a delightfully patronising opening
I agree with Peter. YouTube views do not mean much if the campaign lost money or did not achieve targets. It is an award-winning campaign, but at the end of the day, it is about selling deoderant, not entertaining. If you can sell deoderant and entertain, that is a bonus. Ask any Product Manager which they would choose and every one of them would choose sales, if they could only pick one.
I think that there’s a variety of reasons why people purchase goods and services, and that sales are a function of many different variables (any marketer or advertiser worth their salt recognises this.)
The most obvious variable affecting sales is the product -Does it work? (in marketing speak; does it satisfy a need or a want?)
Another is price (can I afford it?) The price in relation to competitive products, and the price in relation to consumer perception of value for money play an important part in sales (as do discounts and rewards.)
Place is the third (can I buy the product at my local supermarket? when I get there, will it be in-stock?)
The above variables are 3 of the 4 p’s and they all contribute to sales, and we are yet to get to advertising. If any or all of these 3 fail, the best ad in the world may not convert a sale.
The 4th is of course promotion, and this is where advertising comes in. Advertising alone cannot be attributed to sales. If you want proof of this, look at the majority of businesses that do not advertise every day of the year. Do they still sell during periods when ads are not active? You bet they do.
In regards to Old Spice, the product may be the issue, not the advertising (I say may because OS did move units.) I believe W&K have done an amazing job building such awareness and gaining as much mileage as they have. Even more so given their task, which by the way, was most likely partly to improve brand image and awareness (big tick there.) They also showed insight into targeting the female in the household, who is often the purchaser of this type of product (another tick.) I don’t know the status of the pricing and distribution or other market information that confronted W&K in this instance, but I’m sure that the hype (and the fact Old Spice were advertising) would have increased distribution and presence on shelf (tick again if this was a campaign objective.) According to Cathie’s post they did move units, which I would argue is more a marketing goal than it is an advertising one. If the coupons worked, fantastic!
I don’t agree that Old Spice have missed “the biggest missed marketing opportunity of the 21st century.” I think they are going down that road now, with the introduction of Old Spice “Danger Zone” which will broaden product appeal and talks to a different target audience, which from what I’ve seen is younger and male. Check out http://www.oldspice.com/
The beauty of the original campaign is that it provides a platform for ongoing communication with a broader audience i.e. it is campaignable because it is memorable. And that I believe deserves another tick.
Lots of factors contribute to a campaigns success and this was a success from every angle: Sales, PR and awareness.
It made a brand no one talked about into a brand lots of people talked about and it connected to a generation of audience that had no negative preconceived view of what the brand was.
Maybe they could have made the campaign into something that allowed consumers to contribute to product development, but if you ignore the massive issues relating to cost, development and distribution, can people even describe what they want to smell like and would they like it if they got to have it?
It seems that either the Old Spice Brand Manager has been mis-quoted or what he is stating is indeed a substantial commercial result – both value incorporating the promotion discount and volume.
I’m sure the powers that be at P&G are delighted with their No. 1 market share position – and dare I assume that was not the case before this campaign…….
Are we in the business of sales (as Cathie says)? I don’t think we are – I think we’re in the business of building connections between brands and people, an outcome that leads to sales. And that Old Spice seems to have done pretty well.
Would a socially led strategy that asks people what they wanted in an after shave lotion have worked better? I’d question this too – as Steve Jobs already with his comment ‘we don’t ask people what they want because they don’t know”.
Henry Ford put it more eloquently – “If I’d asked people what they wanted they’d have said – a faster horse!’
As a marketer, why wouldn’t you leverage trial of product at the same time as a big campaign message to enhance its results? And why do you need to separate all the different mediums of communication to measure them? Ludicrous. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Cathie wrote the article to be provocative and get a reaction, job done.
Old Spice was a tired old brand for your dad.
Now it’s a modern fun brand with a larger target.
This campaign was not the first, it was the second in the series. ‘Ahoy’ was the first and it was also brilliant in my opinion.
If you can’t see that repositioning an almost dead brand into something people want to engage with doesn’t help your case for sales then you work in the wrong industry.
This campaign has built the potential for sales over many years to come.
Stop being so short sighted with your talk of ROI. The return on this campaign will have rub off for many years, even after the ads are no longer running.
It’s called Branding. Creating want. Capitalising on desire.
Unfortunately so many marketers move jobs too often and don’t play the long game.
So sick of marketers/advertisers/PR folk hiding behind customer engagement/interaction stats. At the end of the campaign if your objective was to sell units that’s what you measure. As a professional marketer if you can’t link your outcomes with the sales then you haven’t been successful. YouTube views do not equate to profits, even if they do make you feel warm and fuzzy
Agreed Jo. Just ask Kodak. They have a lovely YouTube channel with lots of views and subscribers- https://www.youtube.com/user/KodakTube
I agree with Andrew M. Promotion is a central component and does not represent failure. It is also a defence mechanism.
John West Bear campaign was a terrific piece of advertising, but it ultimately failed to generate revenue it should have done because Princes price promoted their tuna at campaign and capitalized on interest. John West didn’t close the sales loop. Old Spice ensured they did.
I totally agree with Gual and with Cathie. Both sound convincing on a topic I know nothing much about. God I hate that!