Month: January 2011

Everyone knows the old spice guy. His ads first appeared in theatres almost a year ago. I’ve been told my many of my friends that this ad (or campaign) was an example of very successful marketing – I partially agree with them.

The advertisement is humourous in several ways. It contradicts, how body wash brands usually brand themselves. It goes against the usually video of a white woman stroking herself with soothing music in the background. Instead, it replaces the “white woman” with a robust black man. This ad recognises, that half of it’s consumers (and the population of the world), are actually men. This is also how they’re going to brand their product and their target is obvious – men.

If you listen to what he’s saying, you’ll notice he starts off with: “hello ladies, look at your man…”. This makes it apparent that the buyers are women (or men) and the users are men (or the boyfriend of women)

Instead of just having advertisements in cinema, they upload videos on Youtube and even response to comments, live! I’ve seen several facebook updates urging people to comment on the old spice youtube channel, and ask questions. I guess it’s not too hard to figure out that answering those questions and responding to comments are part of the whole marketing plan. Even now, months after not seeing the old spice guy, the product has a position in our minds. Old spice is for people who are “chick magnets” and their videos are apparently way more effective than the product description Axe has on the back of their bottles.

We were taught that marketing existed for many years. Indeed, as long as the concept of commerce existed, there was marketing.

Recall what we learnt in class, marketing is present in different forms.

As we all know, we are entering an era where information is shared quickly and efficiently. e-commerce, e-businesses, terms that never existed even several decades ago are very frequently used now. Facebook, Youtube, sites that were only found years ago are now making billions of dollars. People from all over the world spend hours a day on these sites. Social media is a new medium.

How can marketers take advantage of this technological shift and harness the world of social media?

Word of mouth is a powerful tool. The video mentioned that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendation, and only 14% trust ads. In the world we live in now, it’s so easy to spread the word. We are, for the first time in history, able to tell all hundreds of friends (or people, just in case you don’t know everyone of your “friends” on Facebook) how much we love, or hate a product.

I noticed a lot businesses already making fan pages or ads for their product on Facebook, assuming they’ve already taken advantage of social media. In my opinion, I think they’ve missed the point. I believe the most effective marketing is to see an update of your friend’s status about a product on your homepage. Whether it be twitter, facebook, myspace (if it still exists), msn display name, etc. And quality customer service and true branding, is what it gets any business there.