If you’d asked me at the beginning of 2010 “which brands do you see doing social media well this year?” my answer would not have been “oh you know, the usual players, Old Spice, Tippex – those guys.”
As we all know, Old Spice has really stormed social media this year. Tippex’s new YouTube channel is proving a hit too, perhaps not on quite the same scale, but with a similarly simple idea and excellent execution it has made that crossover into widespread mainstream media coverage.
Both of these brands have generated a lot of conversation with their campaigns, but there’s another crossover – in both instances a lot of the discussion has been along the lines of “I’d completely forgotten about them”. I haven’t checked Old Spice or Tippex’s sales figures, but we can safely say that before these campaigns neither brand was at the top of many people’s minds.
So what is it about them that has worked so well for the platform? Is it purely the ideas and execution, or has their position as brands that have been a little bit forgotten about placed them particularly well for social media success? Both campaigns are very jokey, interactive and Old Spice’s in particular pokes fun at the existing perception of the brand – something that the Nikes and Coca-Colas of this world are less likely to do.
Is it that Old Spice and Tippex didn’t have nearly as much to lose that led them to creating these campaigns? Or has success been partly down to consumers being more open to smaller, less corporate brands? In social media, you need your audience on your side to build a campaign, and everyone loves an underdog.
I suspect there’s an element of truth to both of these points, but either way it shows that more of the big brands need to up their game, lose the fear and take the plunge with something edgier.