Three Lessons About Marketing (Not Just Social Media) From Old Spice’s Successful Social Media Program
Unless you're living under a rock, you know about P&G’s success this week in turning its popular Old Spice Guy commercial into a true social media success story. There's a lot to be learned from this program about social media, but I think it says more about marketing than about social media. Leave it to a 71-year-old brand to show us how to do 21st century marketing!
Lesson One: Paid And Earned Integration: As my friend and Forrester peer Sean Corcoran says, "no media stands alone." Old Spice’s social media success started with what some think of being an old and tired medium — television. But TV isn’t going anywhere and paid media is no less relevant in the social media era than it was in the mass media era. As the Old Spice program shows, the key to making paid media work — really work — is to focus on how to make it more social.
Lesson Two: Adaptive Marketing: Today’s best marketing is adaptive marketing. To quote another friend and former Forrester peer, Lisa Bradner, “Today's brand marketing organizations are ill equipped to handle the world of ‘always on’ marketing in the digital age. To remain relevant, marketing leaders will embrace Adaptive Brand Marketing.” The Old Spice social program wasn’t an idea that was part of a one-year campaign planning process but instead was envisioned and executed in rapid fashion to respond to the success of the Old Spice character and commercials.
