BeFrame Blog

Campaign from P&G with Old Spice has raised again the question: who should be in charge of Social Media engagement – PR or advertising agency? Or maybe it’s time to think about a new kind of agency that will combine the best practices from both. Who knows… But anyway we should admit the extreme PR success of Wieden + Kennedy ad agency with Old Spice Man (OSM) who brought for the client enormous attention to the brand and for the agency overall recognition and respect of the Advertising and PR industries. These guys have made the thing that PR has in its meaning – created and developed relations with public. Let’s take a look at what they’ve done through the PR point of view and at lessons that we can learn from this work.

1. Find the right man

Of course, in PR we do not have such an opportunity to organise casting and find an ideal face to represent our company or a client. And PR choice is usually limited by Board of Directors or PR department of the company where we need to find someone who our customers or consumers would like to smell like… Oh, sorry not that. Someone who is customers would like to deal with, someone with good reputation and brilliant sense of humor. No really, on the other side of this field it’s also people and they want to hear human beings who may accept failures, respect critics and joke when it’s needed. Any volunteer from BOD?

2. Make him talk

Alright, we found our Man. Now what? Unfortunately in PR it is very rarely happens like in advertising where you can write fantastic scenario for the ad reel and after multiple rehearsals make the one that will shoot. But we can use advertising example to persuade and explain to our Man that talk in comfortable conditions is much better than answer uncomfortable questions in forced situation. So we’ve got our options: let’s talk more, let’s express our opinion in advance, and let’s be the first who says something.

3. Become visible

Even when we persuaded our Man and he is ready we need to understand how to spread the word. Old Spice Man showed us how powerful digital media can be when reached 110 million of viewers. Today we’ve got so many tools and platforms for our disposal and they are ready to welcome a new voice, especially if it is voice of “someone who is customers would like to deal with, someone with good reputation and brilliant sense of humor”. Facebook has 500 million users, Twitter more than 100, LinkedIn 70, YouTube billions of viewers, in addition to Flikr, Foursquare, MySpace, Bebo and so on – use cross platform integration and become visible. You may ask – but how about traditional media? Just look at the media coverage that OSM received after such a huge public attention and all doubts will disappear.

4. Add interaction

OK, now we are everywhere. But it’s not the end of the road – it’s only an inception. From this moment the most exciting and the crucial part begins – interaction. We’ve said enough, people saw us and they’ve got a lot to tell us back. We need to listen very attentively what people say and start acting. Our Man should interact with customers and consumers by means of direct replies, video appeals, voice messages or photo reports. I think interaction was a key to success of OSM campaign and now it has more than 700 000 fans on Facebook and almost 100 000 followers on Twitter. And it’s better to use this practice for PR rather than neglect it.

5. Never stop interacting

And now when we learned all 4 lessons above the best thing we can do is never stop our Man interaction. You know, there is a media battle regarding P&G sales results after this campaign and some say that success of OSP didn’t bring any results, the others that it was 100% increase in sales. But I think that it doesn’t matter at this stage. We all know that not only communication activities like PR and advertising are in charge of successful sales but also price, availability of the product (for example I can’t find Old Spice in London, and if somebody knows the place, please, send me a link ) and its quality at last. That’s why this discussion of OSM effectiveness does not seem so relevant. But what we can say exactly is that the social asset which they gained by this campaign is the most valuable achievement that will work for them for a long long period unless… they stop interacting.

In conclusion I’d like to tell that OSM campaign has made very noticeable contribution for both PR and Advertising markets and it will definitely boost creative and interactive parts of the work as it has happened with “The Best Job of the World” last year, do you remember? And I’m looking forward what is going to be next!

Anton Davidenko

Co-founder of PRFrame

@prframe

www.prframe.com

www.beframe.com