Fritinancy: Hes on a Roll

July 16, 2010

He’s on a Roll

When Old Spice’s spokehunk*—aka The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, aka Isaiah Mustafa—made his screen debut back in February, he was, famously, on a horse. His second commercial showed him swandiving (OK, “swandiving”) into a hot tub. The ads, and the “I’m on a horse” line, became almost overnight that most coveted of media phenomena: the viral hit. But what was even more remarkable was how quickly and astutely Old Spice’s agency, Wieden + Kennedy, capitalized on the buzz. A team of agency writers, directors, and tech folk turned the social-media comments into scripted, personalized response videos.

Some of the videos were addressed to celebrities (George Stephanopoulos, Ellen De Generes, etc.), but most went out to civilians such as this alphanumeric admirer:

If you have sufficient sitzfleisch, you can watch all the videos on the Old Spice YouTube channel (almost 200 in all). Then check out ReadWriteWeb’s post on the making of the videos. According to W+K’s global interactive creative director, Iain Tait, technical and social-media experts worked closely with the creative team. “We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web ... in real time.”

All the videos were shot over two days this week before Mustafa wearily but gamely announced The End. But there’s an afterlife: An Old Spice voicemail generator puts Mustafa’s unctuous voice into your outgoing phone message.

And there’s already been a well-executed parody of the ads, created by—surprise, surprise!—the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.