How to Get Free Online Advertising
So unless you’ve been living under the same rock that allowed me to miss the whole Book of Eli thing – what a great movie, why didn’t someone tell me – you’ve by now seen the Old Spice Man commercials. The buzz around them is how much “free” exposure this campaign has received. But here’s the thing. They actually spent a ton of money and effort to prime that pump.
Almost every client I speak to is lured by the potential of free internet marketing. “I’ll just build a Facebook page and my business will go through the roof” is involved in nearly every conversation I have these days in one form or another. And while Facebook and YouTube were critical to the success of the Old Spice Man, it didn’t happen the way our local businesses think it can.
Here’s some comments from someone I respect to which I’ll add our local spin for you.
When Old Spice, W+K et al, made the decision to produce extremely rapid custom content based on the popular character, they changed the very way we will look at advertising going forward. The big question for everyone is: What does it all mean? Here are a couple of thoughts.
1. Creative and production matter (still)! It seems that the death of high-quality content in the advertising world has been greatly exaggerated. With the Old Spice Man, we saw that a great creative concept and high quality production work can still trump most challenges facing advertising.
Since the local advertising bar is much lower, you can leap over your competition with just a little extra effort. Yes this extra effort may involve costs. How many car dealer ads do we have that are just a series of cars? What could one of these businesses do to set themselves apart? The Old Spice Commercial barely even shows the product yet you know exactly what the ads are for. No lame ads allowed!
2. Buying media to build an audience. Stories have a funny way of rewriting themselves. What people in the advertising industry will remember tomorrow, and what they are already talking about, is how Old Spice was able to get so much “free” media through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. However, what is left out of this scenario is the millions of dollars in television and digital media that Old Spice used to build an audience for a genius creative campaign. It was this equity with their consumers that allowed the short-form content to be such a success.
When most of the businesses in town are trying to build themselves through word-of-mouth, any of them can get a leg up with some creative advertising to “prime” that pump. Give people something to remember you by and then they will tell their friends. This kind of stuff doesn’t just fall out of the sky like manna – even though that myth continues to be repeated.
3. Rethinking content production. While the entire campaign was brilliant, the most innovative part was the execution of a series of short but extremely high-quality responses from the Old Spice Man to questions in social media. Building in a plan for the production and distribution of additional, audience-engaging, high-quality content is not an easy task. While it can be highly impactful, there are a number of factors to consider (we’ll get to that). Help your customers to engage with their customers.
Advertising in the social media age needs to be a two way conversation. Get your message out there, listen, respond. Campaigns built on this model can grow virally. Campaigns that start lame, get stale, and don’t respond to the customers’ feedback won’t. 1988 was cool, but advertising strategies from back then risk losing the attention of your customers.
4. An idealized version of The Old Spice Man will (unfortunately) be the new standard in digital (RIP Crispin Porter’s Subservient Chicken). It is the brilliance of the work and the fact that it was so innovative that make it nearly impossible to replicate.
A lot of things came together for The Old Spice Man to make it such a great success. First, it was first. If tomorrow there was another character addressing digital fans, it would be hard-pressed to get the same reaction from people. Along with average fans, Old Spice Man addressed a number of very influential social media types, and these people in turn promoted the Old Spice video to their millions of friends, fans and followers. There is obviously a limit to how many times a brand could reuse this tactic.
Second, the character was so well put together and so well executed, that he stood on his own (reminder: AFTER an audience was built using PAID media vehicles). This is, of course, very rare. Not every campaign that is remotely funny will meet the high bar set by The Old Spice Man — but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad campaign, it just means it needs more distribution support.
This author works on the national level, but there remains the opportunity for local businesses to own the “first” of their space – both geographically and business niche. Here in Jackson County we have room for the first cool restaurant, auto dealer, hot tub dealer, clothing store, bar, landscaper, etc. Or businesses can continue to do the same “buy one meal get the second ½ off” crap campaigns that all their competition does.
Sure it takes more work, that’s why I’m here to help. What should we do to get your business talked about?
