Old Spice Man Gets Backed Up With A Few Numbers, Sales Up 107 Percent

from the silver-fish-catch dept

Thu, Jul 29th 2010 6:10am — Dennis Yang

With all of the buzz lately around the fantastically successful Old Spice campaign, some numbers are finally starting to trickle in about whether or not the campaign actually translated into more sales of the body wash. Although initial reports suggested that the ads did little to boost sales, according to Nielsen, sales of the body wash rose 107 percent in the past month. That said, the increase cannot be necessarily attributed entirely to the social media campaign, since a coupon campaign for the body wash was also running at the same time. In an age, driven largely in part by the supposed traceability of online advertising, where there has been a large push to track ad spends all the way down to individual purchases, this ad campaign reiterates the adage attributed to John Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Since this campaign was very much a branding campaign, just because it happens online does not necessarily make it more traceable, so it's difficult to say what percentage of the increase can be attributed to the campaign. That said, at least for me, I know I considered buying some Old Spice body wash when I was at Walgreens last week, and apparently I was not alone.

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Filed Under: marketing, old spice, sales

13 Comments

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Yeebok (profile), 29 Jul 2010 @ 6:43am

I love these ads. I enjoyed all the others I saw in response to comments. Yes, I would buy some but I've been told no by She Who Must Be Obeyed. That said, she likes the man that I could smell like. She likes the ads too.

I'm on a horse.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2010 @ 6:49am

On a side note, the Old Spice Man, Isaiah Mustafa, is a former wide receiver in the NFL.

All the attention he's gotten from the commercials and the social media campaign have gotten him signed up with NBC. He's got a guest spot coming up in an episode of "Chuck", and a small role in an upcoming Jennifer Anniston movie, "Horrible Bosses".

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i0cbf0f1b5c08147a869f107 3841fea3c

.
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jsl4980 (profile), 29 Jul 2010 @ 6:52am

I bought some Old Spice body wash recently, but because it looks cooler and smells better than the other ones in the store. I hope they associate the increase in sales as a direct result of that campaign. I'd love to see other companies take a risk like that.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2010 @ 6:55am

How many people didn't buy old spice just for fun to make a spoof of the commercials?

How many people didn't make jokes at the counters in front a lot of other people and those people got curious to see what the fuss was all about?

It may even has been successful as the "old spice" could have gone down in sales and that campaign stopped that.

I was reading "Street-Fighting Mathematics"(Sanjoy Mahajan-CC Commons) and the first thing that it touches is the fact that people need to pay attention to what they compare things.

Recently also a military man said that you need to define success correctly.

In this case I think it was very much a success the brand is now more recognizable so the ad's did their job the augmented the brand exposure to the public and imprecated that on their minds, if that will translate into sales that will depend on the product no?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2010 @ 6:56am

Other companies could try, but most aren't going to have such a suprisingly popular spokesperson, even before the social media blitz. That's one of the things that made it all work so well.
The ad guys really pulled one out of the hat with this.
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JB, 29 Jul 2010 @ 7:19am

Has anyone considered...
Has anyone considered the possibility that Old Spice products may have been decreasing in sales before the campaign started? I know I had all but forgotten about Old Spice and have hated their ads from several years ago. That said, I personally don't like the fragrance.
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Clay, 29 Jul 2010 @ 7:44am

Look away, now back at me
This post is now diamonds.
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Jay (profile), 29 Jul 2010 @ 8:46am

Let's remember
Proctor and Gamble have been really interested in social media for a long time. They even have something similar to Facebook being used by their networks. Source

It was only a matter of time that their experimentations would make such a successful media blitz. Gotta give them credit for doing something completely out of the park like this. It's going to be hard for other body washes to duplicate their success. They should get to work.
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CommonSense (profile), 29 Jul 2010 @ 9:23am

It could be because the Old Spice man got Alyssa Milano involved... I'd buy anything her beautiful lips told me to buy...
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trilobug, 29 Jul 2010 @ 9:36am

Hmm..I thought sales were down, even though brand recognition was up.

That is good to read, they are definitely some of the best ads currently running.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 29 Jul 2010 @ 9:36am

Re:
"It could be because the Old Spice man got Alyssa Milano involved... I'd buy anything her beautiful lips told me to buy..."

Jesus, we men are stupid....
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Noël, 29 Jul 2010 @ 10:04am

A big piece, but just a piece
'...the increase cannot be necessarily attributed entirely to the social media campaign, since a coupon campaign for the body wash was also running at the same time.'

I think the idea is that a social media campaign will reinforce any other marketing attempts going on - it's one part of a larger strategy, not a standalone tactic, and shouldn't be measured as such.

Cheers for the results report!
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lrobbo (profile), 29 May 2012 @ 4:17pm

Certainly a 2 pronged attack but it's practically impossible to track just quite how effect a branding campaign is in sales revenue
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