What the Old Spice Man Can Teach You About Marketing Your Local Business

Yeah I know.

What can a shirtless man sporting men’s deodorant teach you about marketing your business?

Well, a lot of things actually. This advertising campaign is easily one of the most popular advertising campaigns to come along in the last few years. Not only did it receive a lot of attention from viewers but it also sparked a great deal of positive reaction too.

For instance, this video already has more than 9 million views on YouTube alone, and it’s been up for only about two weeks! Thus, not only is this video reaching audiences, but people are flocking to see it. Even in my group of friends, the video has spread around like wildfire. I couldn’t go a day these last few weeks without hearing about the Old Spice man.

Thus, this advertising campaign is the very definition of viral marketing. It has generated a great deal of buzz and likely surpassed anyone’s expectations at Old Spice.

Some of the good marketing principles from this campaign can prove invaluable to your local marketing campaigns as well. You can attract more customers to your doors and get greater awareness and loyalty from your customers, by using some of these principles.

I have thus decided to list out some of the good principles that you you can learn from a campaign like the Old Spice man campaign:

Give your customers what they want…entertain them

Everyday life is pretty boring. You wake up, go to work, go home, and go back to sleep. This is what all your customers experience day by day.

Thus if you really want to stand out among your competitors, don’t be afraid to entertain your customers. People don’t want boring. They experience boring every minute of every day. Therefore, if you want to spark their genuine interest you should provide at least a little flicker of entertainment in their lives. Then, they will remember you.

You can’t make someone look at your advertising and really see what you are trying to market, unless you draw them in. We have all had billboards and commercials thrown in front of our eyes, but we rarely pay any attention to them. It’s as almost as if we have programmed our brains to ignore commercials once they come on to the screen.

However, in those rare instances where we are actually entertained by an ad, we find the ad resonating with us a little longer.

Think about the Super Bowl. When I watch the Super Bowl with my friends, we not only find ourselves excited to see the actual game but also excited to see the commercials. Why? Because Super Bowl commercials are always the most entertaining and unique commercials of the year. This kind of delight and excitement, you can also pull through your own advertising campaigns.

By the way, the Old Spice guy got his start at the Super Bowl. Moreover, his commercial was one of the best remembered from the Super Bowl as well.

Thus, if you want to draw in your customers, feel free to throw in some humor, uniqueness, and even weirdness into your advertising campaigns.

Be Unique, Have a voice

My brother is an artist. More specifically, he is a photographer.

At one point he told me, “Good art doesn’t come from a committee. It comes an individual voice”

I can only imagine what the Old Spice campaign must have looked like when the idea came about. I bet that individuals at Old Spice must have thought they were taking a bit of risk with this ad campaign.

Frankly, the idea of a shirtless man speaking completely nonsensical things to a camera while also pulling stunts seems a bit odd.

Furthermore, ideas like this don’t come about by a group of people voting on it. These kinds of ideas only come from individuals who are using their very own creativity and imagination.

However, Old Spice simply trusted that such an ad campaign would work and thus took a major bet on the campaign’s potential.

This bet has obviously paid off, and now Old Spice is reaping the rewards of their risk.

You also should not be afraid of taking such risks when trying to market your own local business. Don’t be afraid of putting a unique voice out there. After all, people don’t want to see something that they find every day. Such bland and colorless campaigns will only prove unsuccessful as they will fail to resonate with your audience. Take a risk and let out your own creative talents when executing your campaigns.

 

 

Local SEO Citations
Three Strands Marketing