Today I read an article by the Yahoo! TV Blog that it looks like the Old Spice Guy campaign was flop because sales seem to be down 7%. This is farcical. Why?

Because the crux of the campaign was last week.

Since the campaign began in February with the Super Bowl Commercial, there have been 3 new commercials. These commercials are aimed primarily to older women, hence hunky Isaiah Mustafa. (Actually, I would argue that the mustache commercial, which I’ve only seen on the YouTubes, is directed at hipster dudes.) These are the part of the campaign that the numbers are tied to. The blog Jezebel has a few reasons why they think the commercials didn’t work, and I would primarily agree with their points.

HOWEVER, like I said, these aren’t the main course – these were the appetizers for what happened the week everything changed. As of this post, the channel’s upload views are at 109,694,136. let’s cut out 12.2 million from that number and you are getting close to what happened last week. That’s an obscene number to rack up in 7-odd days.

On top of that, let’s all think about the fact that bodywash, deodorant and aftershave are not chocolate bars – you don’t buy them everyday. I would wait a few weeks to let people run out of Old Spice’s competitor products before we assign failure to a huge social media breakthrough campaign.

WK

Find more of Mark Osborne’s work at happyproduct.com.

WK

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

WK

Today is the first sunday in advent, which means that it is advent/christmas blogging for my blog. I’ve been doing this at various levels for 5 years now, and this year I’m going to theme each week by advent candle. This week will be ‘hope’, so expect musings, memories, songs, and videos relating to the Hope of Christmas coming.

To start us off, here is what I believe is the most hopeful song in the history of Christmas hymns. It says everything I would want to say about it, so here it is:

O Come O Come Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.