Comments on: Why Old Spice matters

By: The Unending Flood, Hipsterism and Hope « Scrawled in Wax

The Unending Flood, Hipsterism and Hope « Scrawled in Wax — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 06:48:44 +0000

[…] day, in the midst of one of ‘our’ breathless, excited comment discussions, Gavin said this: When Robin in particular talks about a big new thing, he’s usually not really making a […]

By: old spice revisited – viral, but not social? — cafedave.net

old spice revisited – viral, but not social? — cafedave.net — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:21:01 +0000

[…] There’s a fast company interview, mashable stats, marketing sherpa’s take on things, snarkmarket’s take, NetRegistry’s take and then you could just start searching twitter and blogs for […]

By: Bob Page

Bob Page — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:56:23 +0000

This is indeed brilliant work by Wieden & Kennedy. I am even more impressed by Procter & Gamble. They took a huge risk here as a client, trusted the agency and built a relationship that made this leap of faith possible. P&G deserves kudos for courageous investment and collaboration that moves our entire culture forward.

By: Allen Tan

Allen Tan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:38:51 +0000

The precursor to this, of course, is improv theater. The audience contributes something, and then the actors riff on it, however they like, to build out a coherent world.

This is different, not only from the more global nature of online, but also that many of the contributors don’t realize that they are, in fact, contributors until they get riffed on.

By: Kelley Rickenbaker

Kelley Rickenbaker — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:21:08 +0000

Here’s a thought from the sidelines. Take the Old Spice guy campaign workflow, the connectivity, the timeliness and the iterative nature of the content that is produced and move it whole hog into the “real world” of televised news on the Internet.

Online storytelling doesn’t have to be limited to fiction…

Big event or little event. Haiti, the Arizona border, Jimmy Buffet fundraising for the folks on the Gulf.

Producing such an animal would be great fun.

And as Robin pointed out, “There are ways to interact with an audience that aren’t just jokey call-and-response.”

If a key driver here for the viewers is the pleasure of engagement, what might be the outcome of exposing some news event (from serious to not-so-serious,) to this type of treatment?

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:20:32 +0000

Yeah, I was thinking about this, too. Not the academic part. (Although I think my posts have gotten more academic since I quit academia because I have less of an outlet.) But the bit about what it means when Robin (or anybody here) says “_____ if the future of media.” Besides just making up something sensational to drive up pageviews, which is important for our no-advertising.

This is a very academic answer. But I think you could analyze that statement this way: “_____ is a revealing fragment of what the future of media could/might/should be.” Or, “The future of media is the structural horizon in which ______ is possible.” Or, yes: “Go, man, go!”

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:14:01 +0000

I think it's a lot harder for new voices to pull this off, without having some kind of longer-form anchor, especially if they're not playing with items with a public interest. Not impossible -- see Homestar Runner, just about every blog and comic strip, etc. -- but hard. Remember the author-function/work-function post; unless you have done X, most people will ask, "just who are you again?" Now one way to get over this is precisely what they did here: go for sheer quantity. 100+ bite-sized videos in just a couple of days. That is a work -- interactive and atomized, but it has a scale and perceived unity all the same. It is an event. A show in many, many acts.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:01:35 +0000

A friend of mine implicitly criticized Snarkarket for being an "academic" site, which, this comment thread aside, I think misses something big. When Robin in particular talks about a big new thing, he's usually not really making a big claim of "this is the new narrative," or "this is totally different than anything that has existed before." What he's usually saying is "I can totally see how someone could use this to do something great." To which the response is not "eh, I'm not sure that this is really new," but "go, man, go!" :-)

By: Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:59:35 +0000

Totally agree w/ all of these points.

I especially like this question, of course: “What will be the stock?”

In an alternate universe, where this is the first foray of a young Lucas, I love the idea that maybe a spectacle like this builds the momentum (and secures the funding) for a feature film.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:30:43 +0000

One more thing: the thing that is compelling to me about the videos is that the Old Spice guy somehow inhabits the same world as us and does not. He speaks differently, he produces diamonds from his hand, he floats into swimming pools that hold motorcycles, yet, references Twitter celebrities, knows about the websites we visit, and talks to us. It's like a cartoon character stepping out into the real world for us to interact with. It reminds me of the delight I get from seeing Sesame Street characters on the late night shows, or this video of Elmo visiting Ricky Gervias' office.