They implemented the idea of ‘The Old Spice Man’, with the early motto, Experience is Everything. Early Old Spice men include Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame, Tony Stewart, LL Cool J, Neil Patrick Harris, and finally ending with Isaiah Mustafa, former NFL player and current World’s Handsomest Man on a Horse. The success of this campaign is phenomenal. Since 2007 the ads have become increasingly ridiculous, and viewers have eaten it up.

The response is owed to an understanding of the power of social media and it’s strategies: monitoring responses, repeating success while their still trending, capitalizing on youTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, interacting virtually with influential bloggers and celebrities, cross-promotion, and keeping the brand related to the everyday person. (Yes, click the links, they’re all gold).

Here is a great 5 min video by Weiden + Kennedy creating a case study for the success of the social media campaign:

SOURCES:
http://wearesocial.net/blog/2010/08/wieden-kennedys-spice-case-study/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/28/old-spice-sales-up-107-pe_n_662013.html

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/The-Sweet-Smell-of-Social-Media-Success—and-the-Funk-of-Failure-70426.html?wlc=1282422146&wlc=1282618561

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/maggiemcgary1/149050/whats-roi-old-spice-guy

http://www.simplyzesty.com/advertising/spice-ads-work-sales-107-month/

source: http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/02/20/small-business-saas-is-catching-a-wave/

This is a good example of where the public and private lines become blurred. People tweet thinking that what they say will not be seen by anyone but their personal circle of followers. Should someone be persecuted for tweeting @ someone? Twitter is a public forum, but we all have the right to free speech. I personally feel that the management company jumped the gun and is setting a poor precedent about how they handle these kind of situations. While they see it as brand control and showing that they do not tolerate slanderous accusations, what the public sees are heartless monsters who react before they think. An adult way to handle this situation would be to settle privately, and maybe to use words instead of suing. Discussing the situation and assessing it privately without freaking out and making it news-worthy would reflect better on the company.

Sources:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1687436,CST-NWS-twitter28web.article

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=8201190&page=1

http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/property-management-company-sues-tenant-over-single-tweet-on-twitter/

• Sassy Old Lady: i was on the email and i said ‘wish you were here’ – L.O.L!
• Geriatric husband: What’s an ell oh ell?
• Sassy Old Lady: LOTS OF LAUGHS! Obviously!

it was great. I wanted to lean over and say, welllll technically YR wrong, But i decided to let her have her moment. She was pretty much right, just saying it in the wrong way. if that makes sense.

I never realized how hard it is to stay within the proper guidelines of spelling and grammar since i started writing these blogs.

i can’t even be bothered to be consistent with capitalizing new sentences (for example, see next sentence). i used to be a spelling bee champion (really! multiple times!), and now i can’t even spell at all because google just does it, and everything else, for me. And it there’s a shorter way to say something, i’m all over it – you’re becomes yr, baby is now bb, and i’m more prolific with “fml” than i’d like to admit. (if you don’t know that last one – Google will tell you.

In my own creative process, i find it’s really getting hard to understand what makes a good design and what looks poor. I’m finding that it’s getting more difficult to be creative on a professional level. My teachers say that they’re marking based on Industry Standards, which makes it harder not only to come up with a good strong idea, but also something that is new and contemporary and reflects our point-of-view. Pressure! I want to be great, but i also think it’s important to understand the elements of design, which i’m not sure i understand, and my instructors find it difficult to put into words these principles.

But looking at images like the Dancing House is one way to understand that design can be many things, and it can influence us in different ways, like how Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ influenced Gehry’s design aesthetic.

Inspiring!

Written language has gone though a struggle with the introduction of the internet, and the proliferation of instantaneous media. Newspapers in smaller cities have dissolved, and magazine that were once tangible and collectible have shifted to on-line only. While there will always be a need for traditional print, the demand for it is diminishing at an alarming pace. What took centuries and millenniums in the making to create and hone will be gone in the next ten years. What will happen to the bible? will anyone even care by then?

With the disappearance of tangible written objects, language has become loose and alterable, allowing it to become something new and contemporary to the times that we’re living in. Letter writing has been replaced by texting and email, which is a separate language in itself – more personal and colloquial. I say bring it on, i welcome the change. Things should always be new, in order to keep life fresh.