P&G's Old Spice is quickly becoming the poster child for branded entertainment success, as its latest campaign, featuring a challenge from "New Old Spice Guy Fabio" against Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa generated 22 million views on YouTube last week according to YouTube Trends. In the challenge, dubbed "Mano a Mano En El Bano," viewers were asked to vote on a series of videos of Fabio and Mustafa (which Mustafa won).
Much has been made about brands creating their own original online video content, but few can claim the same degree of success as Old Spice and its agency Wieden + Kennedy. Old Spice's YouTube channel has generated a whopping 232 million+ views for the 344 videos uploaded, and has attracted 280K+ subscribers. Meanwhile there are thousands of comments, likes/dislikes and embeds, all adding up to strong engagement.
What's Old Spice's secret? Entertainment value, humor, lots of sex appeal, great special effects, and not taking the brand itself too seriously. No doubt we'll continue to see more of Mustafa in future. Fabio, I'm not as sure about, though he served his purpose well.