Old Spice: Sexy Ads Get Personal & Go Viral

Unless you've been living under a rock (or outside the US), you've probably seen the recent ad campaign that Old Spice has been running in TV commercials. The ads are silly, sexy, and attention-getting. People began commenting about them on social networks, and Old Spice has now taken the idea of "viral" and really run with it! (Or rather, has stood still in a towel with it...)

Old Spice has had their now-infamous "Old Spice Guy" answering fan posts and tweets with customized, specific messages, in real time. Today in LibraryLand, all the chatter has been about one that was on libraries, thanks to a Twitter request from New Jersey librarian Andy Woodworth. He tells the story on his blog, with thoughtful commentary, and there are lots of comments too.

I'm grateful to Christa Burns over at Blog o' Randomness, because that's where I found this link to a story that explains "How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made." Wow.

Over at Mashable, they said this: "Wieden + Kennedy [the ad agency] have set a standard marketing experts will admire and follow in the years to come. This is the future of marketing."

So while much has already been said about this (and at lightening speed), here's The M Word take, in a nutshell:

Awesome campaign, very creative
A great lesson in promotion
Proof that great abs get noticed
Social media can be harnessed
"Books" are still the library brand
Libraries got some free, fun, positive publicity

And my main thought on all this: Look what some creative, intelligent, techno-savvy people accomplished when given the green light. A series of personal-response videos like this would have never been possible had the company decided to elect a committee, then study the idea, then vote on it in 6 months, then present the findings to the admin, then wait for their response. Attention librarians: Sometimes great things happen if you don't talk or study an idea to death. Sometimes you just need to be brave and do something radical.

In this way, and in many others, I want to see libraries start moving and changing at the speed of life.