In case you’re curious, a search for “old spice viral” gets you 392,000 results. MSNBC calls their recently famous campaign “viral”. So does Time. And Salon. And Mashable. Pardon my French, but viral my derrière. Time for a little comparison.
In this corner, Old Spice:
- A Proctor & Gamble brand (disclosure: many P&G brands are clients of Bazaarvoice, my employer)
- P & G is the “6th most profitable corporation in the world, and the 5th largest corporation in the United States by market capitalization” – Wikipedia
- Old Spice hired Wieden + Kennedy to reinvigorate their brand
- W + K is “one of the largest independently-owned advertising agencies in the world,” and “the most awarded agency in the world.” –Wikipedia
- Total Old Spice YouTube channel views: 132,108,567
Here’s Jason Bagley of W+K talking about the campaign on CNN:
In this corner, Justin Bieber:
- 16 year old pop superstar
- Has been backed by Usher and LA Reid
- Has won too many awards to list here
- Two platinum albums in two years
- Most viewed YouTube video of all time (290,959,772 views), with “Baby”
Here it is:
Have you heard “Baby” being referred to as viral? I haven’t. Why not? I suspect it’s because “Baby” debuted after Justin Bieber was insanely popular. There’s nothing fresh or “ guerrilla” about it—there’s no great story to its success. Tweens have “Bieber fever”, and it’s burning up the charts. He could post a video of himself doing math homework and it would get millions of views, tweets and Facebook shares (not to mention oceans of drool).
Old Spice’s campaign is brilliant. It’s creative as hell. Sales shot up. But it’s not viral. Justin Bieber and Old Spice are both household names, established brands (even at 16, in JB’s case). Wieden + Kennedy is the best ad agency in the world.
Justin Bieber + vast production resources + fan base in millions = Win
P&G (“6th most profitable corporation in the world”) + W+K (“most awarded agency in the world”) = Win
Neither = viral
Why? It’s a matter of resources. Both equations equal an overwhelming probability of success. Is something that’s such a sure thing really viral?
I thought viral videos were scrappy. I thought they weren’t sure things. “Charlie bit my finger” and “Evolution of Dance” (#3 and #4 in all time views, respectively) weren’t sure things. Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (#2) was, but I don’t hear anyone calling it viral.
Again, kudos to Old Spice and W+K. They could care less if we call their work viral or not—it was (and is) a beacon of success in our world of ugly, brainless ads.
But it’s as viral as a Michael Bay film is indie.
