CDG Interactive Blog

Heidi talked about the Old Spice campaign last week  (which seems to be one of the most blogged about topics this past week) and one aspect she touched upon in her post is how Wieden + Kennedy chose who to respond to.  They didn’t only choose online celebrities (although they were particularly canny in their selection of those), they also created messages to Ellen DeGeneres, George Stephanapolous and Ryan Seacrest – all people with television shows who could replay the spot and provide additional exposure to audiences that watch them but don't use Twitter.

And it makes sense - when I first saw the 17 second long Surprised Kitty video on YouTube it had about 2 million views and it was making the rounds on Twitter.  A week later, my dad sent it to me because Jay Leno had played it the night before on The Tonight Show. I went back to YouTube and saw it had over 10 million views – that’s the difference between passing it around on Twitter and showing it on network television.

That’s why politicians still put up yard signs and shake hands instead of relying on emails and Facebook. Even though the number of followers a candidate has on social media outlets seems to be a reliable indicator of their success it won’t get people out to the polls by itself. 

And so today when a colleague asked me how her husband could promote an upcoming appearance for his band, I suggested printing postcards and posters in addition to social media activities.

Social media is a complement to real-world activities rather than a replacement. And some people are always going to prefer something tangible like a postcard or a handshake and will never be on Twitter or Facebook and we need to find ways to reach them too.