Old Spice Says: "Believe in Your Smellf"

photo credit: Old Spice UK Facebook

Old Spice is at it again. The ultra-manly antiperspirant brand has yet again come up with an integrated campaign to promote its newest product, this time with executions varying from a complete takeover of the Old Spice UK Facebook page to a variety of :45, :30 and :15 TV spots.

With their typical bravado (Heather Graham cameo, jockey riding a man), they are introducing their new line of "Champion" products (deodorant, antiperspirant and body wash) using a series of unique takes on the "any man" being a Champion at whatever he is doing. This juxtaposition of grandeur in execution using a replaceable and forgettable character creates a unique take that we haven't seen out of Old Spice before this campaign.

What is really cool about this campaign, and honestly, Old Spice campaigns in general, is the full integration among nearly all available media. And not only do they integrate the campaign among all the media, they take it to an extreme degree and "go all out," especially on social media. On the Old Spice UK Facebook page they've not only created a new Timeline cover photo and replaced the profile picture, but they are posting multiple times a day with "quotes" about being a Champion and "believing in your smellf." They are then taking these same ideas about being a Champion and extrapolating them into the messaging in the TV spots and all other utilized media. The integration is seamless, and that is key to a successful multimedia campaign.

If this campaign takes off like their award-winning "The Man Your Man Can Smell Like" campaign, be prepared to see quite a bit of it moving forward with even more extensions upcoming.

So what do you think? Did Old Spice convince you to believe in your smellf? Or did they stink up the place? Let us know what you think and we'll share your comments here.

Thanks to POPSOP.com for helping inform this post.

Holler on Pinterest!

photo credit: Adverblog/Pinterest

In a truly innovative way to approach its website, Holler Sydney, a digital creative agency based in Australia, has moved its entire website over to Pinterest.

This is the first agency that I've been able to find using Pinterest as its website, a spinoff on the unique way agencies have been using YouTube (see BooneOakley for a great example).

The founder and CEO of Holler had the following to say when asked why he decided to move the agency site to the fledgling (but rapidly gaining in popularity) social media site:

“In true Holler Fashion, to get a better understanding of Pinterest (and to look at pretty pictures) we wanted to see whether we can make it work for ourselves. And then pass on key learnings to our clients.”

What a terrific idea with boundless reward, and at the same time, what a frightening idea with incredible risk!

However, we Vikings here at Denmark want to tip our helmets to the brave folks down under at Holler Sydney, for having the courage to be bold in their efforts to conquer not only for themselves, but for their clients as well. It takes a brave group of individuals to take a risk like this, and they should be recognized for it.

With all this being said, what do you think about Holler Sydney's decision? Does it work? Does it not? Have you heard of any other unique uses of Pinterest? Feel free to comment below and we'll share your ideas here.


Thanks to the folks at Adverblog for always being on top of the newest trends and for informing this post.

Will Cloud-Based Streaming Save the Radio Star?

photo credit: PC Mag

Today, it's safe to assume most folks are listening to a majority of their music via cloud-based streaming such as Pandora and Spotify. A good indicator of cloud-based streaming popularity was the 50.5% increase in online music listening hours in 2011. According to a February 2012 report from AccuStream Research, U.S. consumers spent 1.3 billion hours listening to music through Internet radio and other streaming services in 2011, up from 865 million hours in 2010.

And it's no surprise the recording industry has been hit hard by the digital push as evident in the increasingly sagging sales of compact discs.

Against this new backdrop, can a new generation of cloud-based streaming models revive the industry? The short answer is maybe − but it's looking good so far. With positive technology adoption forecasts, increased social sharing activity and revenue generating video channels, things are moving in the right direction for expanded marketing opportunities around music content. As an example of just how important online streaming and subscription music services have become to the music industry, Billboard Magazine (a trade publication) now includes data from Spotify, Slacker, Rhapsody and similar music services in its weekly Hot 100 song chart.

Advertising spend is expected to grow on the mobile side as well. Experts predict U.S. mobile music advertising revenues to hit $591.5 million in 2015, more than doubling 2012's total of $264.5 million. The advertising component of mobile revenue is much higher with music than with gaming or video, largely due to the popularity of Spotify and Pandora on mobile devices.

So even though we all get a little irritated with the "3 skips only" rule on Pandora and intermittent pop-up ads on our favorite streaming sites, we should probably be more understanding, myself included, of these interruptions if we want our music to continue to play!

Resources:
eMarketer.com
AccuStream Research

Simple and Smart Tactical Brand Use of Pinterest

photo credit: PFSK

An Israeli creative agency may have just come up with the simplest and smartest way to use Pinterest.

The agency, smoyz, created a campaign for Kotex celebrating "Woman's Inspiration Day," in which they looked at 50 influential women using Pinterest and analyzed what they were pinning to their boards. From this, the agency extrapolated that the items these users were pinning most often were subjects that highly interested them.

Once smoyz discovered each user's interests, they created a gift box customized to each user based on this analysis.

Simple, and smart.

How smart you ask? Well ponder these results for a moment. For the minimal cost of 50 gift boxes and the time it took to target users, analyze pins and put together the boxes, smoyz was able to track the following:

• Nearly 100% of the recipients used social media to post about their prizes (whether on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram)
• Leading to 2,284 interactions
• And therefore over 694,850 total impressions (and growing, remember, these people are influential Pinterest users)
  

The brilliance of this is that it took a traditional idea of customer analysis and married it with a new media that is absolutely skyrocketing (it is now the 3rd largest social site, according to CNN), creating a union that targeted the very core of the Pinterest users and will surely improve Kotex's standing among these key influencers moving forward.

Have you seen any other great tactical uses of Pinterest? Or maybe a use from another social site that you'd like to share? We'd love to include them here, so please comment and let us know!


Click here to check out the video that smoyz put together about this campaign.

Thanks to Adverblog and PFSK for informing this post.