Old Spice - Funny & Smart

What a great week for social media! A real red-letter week that has changed the shape (and hopefully standard) of the social media landscape forever.

For those who chose to spend last week in Outback Chad, I'm talking about my good friends at Wieden + Kennedy and the success of their "Old Spice" campaign.

As Creative Director Iain Tait said:

We just brought a character to life using the social channels we all use every day. But we’ve also taken a loved character and created new episodic content in real time.

This amazing holistic media campaign shows that creating characters that people like, then providing opportunities for them to be immersed in their world is the way forward.

The power of the idea is still king. It's something we build our whole business on here at Radical Love, and it's wonderful to see it validated (even if it is by the competition) in well-thought, well-executed campaigns like this.

And that's what I think is so amazing about Old Spice. It's a fresh idea that doesn't play to the normal (and popular) social media stereotypes. There's no shocking moment to hook people in. There's no reference to old faithful memes like Starwars Kid or Tron Guy. This is a beautiful union of well-written, well-produced content that connected with people for its honesty, reality and transparency.

So well done Old Spice... and please know the certain influx of cheap ripoff campaigns won't spoil this wonderful moment in cyber-history.