Buzz

American marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy, have been awarded an Emmy for their celebrated Old Spice advertising campaign. The team behind the 'Old Spice Guy' commercial, which saw actor Isaiah Mustafa answer user-submitted questions on YouTube, claimed the Outstanding Commercial award yesterday.

Launched in July, the marketing campaign featured Mustafa responding to questions on Twitter and Facebook via real-time videos. In all, 186 videos were made across a three day period, posting 23 million views 36 hours after the launch of the first video.

"Winning an Emmy is a surreal experience. It's such a great honour to be recognized by the entertainment industry and encourages our desire to create work that not only sells products, but entertains people," said Jason Bagley, one of the creatives responsible for the campaign.

The Old Spice campaign, which ran with the slogan 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like', was widely celebrated for its innovative use of social media. Matt Fiorentino, marketing analyst for Visible Measures, commented on the campaign after its launch:

"There’s never been a campaign that has answered users’ questions so personally and so quickly,” he says. “It just it wasn’t just that, it’s the way that they did it. The writing was brilliant. The acting was brilliant."

Indeed, the campaign itself is credited to have raised the profile and sales of the Old Spice brand. Social media site Mashable claimed that the viral marketing videos had raised the sales of Old Spice body wash by 107 per cent in the month following the advertisements.