Here is a great recap and analysis of the Old Spice ‘The man your man could smell like’ campaign which was well documented here on Shopbabbles and seemingly everywhere else.

Here is a quick post which might be of interest to our readers.  A new movie called The Social Network - a film narrative about the founders of the social-networking website, Facebook – will be out this October.

Here is the trailer:

Wow! Not only did Old Spice and Wieden Kennedy pickup a Grand Prix at Cannes for their campaign, they’ve just started rolling out one of the best social campaigns I’ve ever seen, all based on the ads that generated so much talk over the last few months.

Old Spice has just started delivering personal video replies to tweets (and now even YouTube and Facebook comments)! Yep, if you had tweeted about Old Spice, chances are you might have an @reply with a custom made video just for you. And if you haven’t, then you can tweet to them right now @oldspice and you might be lucky enough to get a custom video reply. So far they’ve delivered almost 120 videos in the last 24 hours alone, with each and everyone one a strategic response to a tweet or YouTube or Facebook comment.

It’s also possibly the best social meets viral strategy I’ve seen, what better way to get people talking about you brand than taking your super popular character recording personalised videos for hundreds of tweeps in record time and then tweeting them their custom video for the world to see! Now, not only are they creating videos for the general public, they’ve been busy creating videos for some of twitters most followed people like twitter founder Biz Stone, Digg founder Kevin Rose, Ellen DeGeneres, Gizmodo, Guy Kawasaki, Perez Hilton and even Ashton Kutcher…

So when these guys see those videos, they’ll be blogging and re-tweeting like crazy. Viral heaven!

This is a seriously big idea wrapped in a simple, straight forward, clever coating that just makes perfect sense. This campaign will be providing insights for social and viral strategy for the year to come and hopefully help big brands and agencies understand that content is king… still… What sucks for Agencies around the world, is that this campaign has probably just picked up half the awards at Cannes 2011! But on the back of this, I think we’ll see some great campaigns this year.

Click here to see a bunch of the reply videos! 

Ok, so what does all this translate into in terms of results / activity so far? Well, bucket-loads of global conversation and brand engagement (those videos are clocking up hundreds of thousands of views already) and 10’s of thousands of new followers over night, acquired through mass amounts of re-tweets and great blog based campaign exposure…

There are some interesting technologies emerging that look like they could have massive impact on the shopping experience and buying decision.  

For example, 3-D screens on mobile devices which could deliver more engaging store guides, virtual shop windows and  product demos for example; new applications for cloud computing that would allow retailers to track spikes in conversations via social networking and then automtaically change their products, offers and promotions to reflect the conversation; and then there’s social television – completely redefining the way we consume and interact with broadcast media. 

We’re already seeing a lot of retailers releasing apps to help manage budgets and compile shopping lists but what seems to be missing at the moment is what we coud term ‘no line’ communication i.e. seamless real-time cross channel communication that recognises where the shopper is, what they need and helps them to make decisions based on what other people experienced – linking  tv, outdoor, mobile, POSM, and social networking togther (for instance)

Follow the link for the full article on some of the most significant technology trends for 2010: http://www.technologyreview.com/tr10/

Agencies watch out! Great example of how Doritos is using social media to tap into the creative capital of well, anybody that fancies having a go really, and bypassing the official and over-priced sponsorship packages around the Superbowl that appeal to brands and their agencies with lots of money and little imagination.

Apparently Doritos have been doing this for a few years now around the Superbowl. It’s their ‘Crash The Superbowl Social Campaign’ that sees thousands of normal people, along with ad creatives & film makers create and submit their funniest Doritos ads in an online competition in the lead up the to Superbowl itself, with the winner, to be played at the main event and the finalists sharing in over $5million in prizes!

Ok – so it takes effort to partcipate and there’s a well oiled production machine behind it that is hardly organic but do you know what, its bloody well done, bang on brand and pivots on one of the big insights that make people want to enagage. Getting attention.

TV is a classical medium. Classical media are out. Social media are in. If you have a TV channel, you are the loser of the social media revolution.

Not true at all!

This story proofs that even TV channels can successfully integrate  social media into their concept. Check out this example by Showtime, an American TV channel.

To promote the premiere of the new season of the TV show “Weeds“, the US TV Channel Showtime has recently launched a 2-minute viral video telling the history of all different kinds of drugs (like ganja, cannabis, paca lolo, marijuana, snop,..)

The video was launched only a week ago, but it already started creating buzz around the show. On YouTube it attracted  more than 260.000 viewers. There are already 1.315 comments. In addition to this there is a rating. So far 1.529 people have voted. The result: 5 stars (out of 5)!

Watch the video here..

I think this is a smart tactic. Users have started watching the video with enthusiasm. Due to the fact that they think it is cool, they rank it with five stars and recommend it to others.  People of today listen to other people more than to media. This means, those who receive the recommendation from a friend are very likely to watch the video themselves.  Some of the viewers will  copy-paste it into their blogs/websites etc. This is how the buzz spreads. The fact that they like the video on YouTube might encourage the viewers to watch the TV show as well.

Of course Showtime also announces the the new season of  “Weeds” on TV. However, I’m quite sure the YouTube method is more efficient This is because people choose to watch the video, they are not just confronted with it – as on TV (Nice side aspect: Uploading content on YouTube is for free)