Did The Old Spice Ads Work? Sales up 107% In Last month

Advertising August 11, 2010 3 Comments @niallharbison

So when the Old Spice Ads came out we all agreed that they caught attention and I went as far as saying they were the Best Use Of Social Media In An Ad Campaign Ever. Over the following weeks (the campaign hit the internet a month ago) there was some lively discussion around the ads and what sort of effect they would have on sales of the product. We said on our own show that the product was rubbish and we didn’t think anybody would buy it. Pat called me out and started an extremely lively discussion in the comments about the effectiveness of the campaign with people arguing both sides of the debate. The agency behind the campaign have released this video now that sums up the campaign and claim that sales increased over 100% in the last month alone. Now it’s important to remember that the agency behind the campaign produced this video and will I am sure have put an extremely positive spin on this video for themselves but what is not in doubt are the numbers at the very end of the video….

It’s Still Not Time To Measure

Although and impressive video I personally don’t think that this is a definitive answer either. There is no doubt that the ad campaign was a huge success but I’d personally want to look at the sales figures in January after the dust has fully settled and exclude all the sexy Youtube numbers, social media mentions and Twitter followers and focus in on cold hard sales. What is not in doubt is that this is one of the most talked about campaigns of the last couple of years.

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online. mesaurement
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http://www.simplyzesty.com Duncan Birch

There is no denying it was a great campaign and very innovative. The numbers are big and the exposure was clearly massive. However I am still dubious over the sales claim. It was mentioned that other brands in the market had similair sales increases during that period e.g gillette 300% increase (can’t find the post that mentioned this). so could this be to do with seasonality? new stores stocking the product e.g in store promotions? I don’t beleive that entire success can be pinned down to the Social media aspect of the campaign. There was a really interesting post that pointed to the fact that Old spice have potentially alienated their original and loyal market (the older gentleman) post here http://bit.ly/bGcJj3 Ultimately I get that the exposure is important but the adverts were not really focused in anyway on the product, I didn’t even know it was advertising shower gel!

As you say Niall will be interesting to see long term how this pans out.
http://aonach.com John Prendergast

Awesome campaign! Inspired & very entertaining and engaging…

But the “bottom line” (alluded to by Wieden & Kennedy in their video) never refers to the cost (understandable as it may be competitively sensitive) or the relative cost of the campaign, compared to other marketing and advertising efforts by the brand. Which would be crucial in terms of measuring success – which does all come back to the bottom line at the end of the day!

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