Social Media Goes Viral

Just seconds before the self-satirizing Old Spice "Man on a Horse" character wore out his welcome, the hyper-manly bastard crushed it this week with a brilliant combination of social media and video. Scores of videos of actor Isaiah Mustafa responding in near-real-time to questions posed on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit were produced. The actor and crew invited high profile members of various social nets to pose questions to the Old Spice persona. Holed up in a studio for a couple of days, they then made short clips in response to queries coming apparently from everyone from Christina Applegate to Alyssa Milano, Demi Moore to the crowds at Reddit.

The Old Spice Guy Has Some Advice For Obama According to ReadWriteWeb a team of videographers and creatives are working in concert with technical staff to determine which Tweets have the combination of social influence and content potential to merit a filmed response. The report quotes Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director: "We're looking at who's written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we're editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web...in real time." As the commercials so clearly portray, the Old Spice Guy is more than perfect, he is an angel sent from heaven to rescue us from the average smelling men in our lives. Recently, the man in the towel, Isaiah Mustafa, took his magical power to another level. Johannes S. Beals, now known to the world as "Jsbeals," dropped to his virtual knees via Twitter and asked the deodorant guru to propose to his girlfriend on his behalf. Mustafa agreed, and to no surprise, the two mere mortals were engaged shortly after the video was aired. Because the truth is, neither male nor female could resist a line like, “your love has blossomed from a seed into a fully grown love plant and now it's time to fertilize that plant.” The effect is simply brilliant. They have succeeded in blending social media, video and sheer creative inspiration into a campaign that looks like nothing that came before. This has become an ongoing social media/video event that just expands its reach every second. The videos are hit or miss, but the project was so addictive you just kept coming back to see if the next one was a hit. The Demi Moore clip, in which our hero trashes a pirate piñata is noteworthy. Alyssa Milano herself grabbed a towel and took her vidcam into the bathroom to vid-banter with him. This is media you can't buy.