The Ultimate Compendium of Old Spice Lessons

Hello, ladies. I am on a bandwagon, backwards.

A Twitter friend made a good observation the other day about how finally there's a new social media campaign to replace Dove as the case study of record. And what do you know?  Isaiah Mustafa's towel has barely dried, and there's already a deck on Slideshare.

I thought I'd spend some time on a handy list of smart thoughts shared by others and save it for the day when I -- and probably you as well -- have slides of our own to write.

Altogether, I have uncovered 54 bulleted and many more freestyle lessons in posts on topics that range from public speaking and enterprise marketing to the future of news and online video. A lot of them are the usual stuff you've been seeing since the dawn of time (that is, the Campaign for Real Beauty) -- seed, engage the influencers, create great content -- the kind of stuff that could've been milked from just about any half-hearted attempt at a Twitter profile. This article that everyone's retweeting contains probably the most of it per square inch.

Here are five lessons that are less obvious:

Characters Are More Social Than Brands - from a colleague of mine and also my favorite on this list.

Create anticipation. This is a great point I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere -- the sense of anticipation that there's more great stuff coming played a huge role in the campaign's success.

Advertising isn't going away. "Could 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' have been created using anything other than broadcast advertising? No. And that's important."

Share the toys. "In response to a popular request on Reddit, the Old Spice Man provided users with the tools to create voicemail messages using his voice, and users used it to create an online voicemail generator."

Know when to stop speaking. (From a list of ten lessons on public speaking).

One from me, too:  invest in a producer with super powers.


Bonus track:  Six more lessons that you've heard before but are worth repeating.

Involve media. "Many of the videos Old Spice created were directly in response to media outlets. By doing that, Old Spice ensured that the media outlet not only saw what they were up to, but it gave them an ego-charged reason to share it with their own audiences."

Don't be a control freak: "This program couldn’t have happened had Proctor & Gamble not ceded control to consumers and to a smart team of marketing professionals."

Keep it simple. "Limit the personality traits of your persona. Don't attempt sophisticated cinematography."

Keep it grainy. "The poor production value, relatively speaking, is part of the point."

Know your medium: "Don't try to take traditional print and broadcast ads and simply regurgitate them on the Web."

Have the guts. "When you really think about it, Proctor & Gamble took a big risk with this campaign."

And here's the brief that the Old Spice brief could've looked like.