So unless you’ve been living under the same rock that allowed me to miss the whole Book of Eli thing – what a great movie, why didn’t someone tell me – you’ve by now seen the Old Spice Man commercials. The buzz around them is how much “free” exposure this campaign has received. But here’s the thing. They actually spent a ton of money and effort to prime that pump. 

Almost every client I speak to is lured by the potential of free internet marketing. “I’ll just build a Facebook page and my business will go through the roof” is involved in nearly every conversation I have these days in one form or another. And while Facebook and YouTube were critical to the success of the Old Spice Man, it didn’t happen the way our local businesses think it can. 

Here’s some comments from someone I learn a lot from to which I’ll add our local spin for you. 

When Old Spice, W+K et al, made the decision to produce extremely rapid custom content based on the popular character, they changed the very way we will look at advertising going forward. The big question for everyone is: What does it all mean? Here are a couple of thoughts.

1. Creative and production matter (still)! It seems that the death of high-quality content in the advertising world has been greatly exaggerated. With the Old Spice Man, we saw that a great creative concept and high quality production work can still trump most challenges facing advertising.

Since the local advertising bar is much lower, you can leap over your competition with just a little extra effort. Continue reading »