New figures quantify the viral success of the Old Spice viral video campaign using the one metric that ultimately matters to marketers: sales. According to The Nielson Co., sales of Old Spice Body Wash jumped 55% in the last three months; in the past month alone they rose 107%. (via Brandweek).
Other marketing agencies are spotting a lift in sales as well. "We think that Old Spice is up," Gary Stibel, CEO and founder of The New England Consulting Group, tells Brandweek. "We don’t think it's up in the double digits, but it's up meaningfully, and we think it's driven 100 percent by marketing."
Earlier numbers suggested the opposite: sales of "Red Zone After Hours Body Wash" - the specific Old Spice product the top spot promoted - fell by 7% in 2010, according to WARC figures. The first ad debuted at the Super Bowl in February. But those numbers were calculated before the campaign's latest push - its two day, 186-plus viral video extravaganza, in which the actor portraying the Old Spice Man, Isaiah Mustafa, took questions and responded to posts on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Reddit. They were produced at roughly a rate of 7 minutes per video.
