Every now and then it’s nice to hear the words “thank-you”, and who better to deliver the message than a beefy, half-dressed, uber-confident ladies man?

You may have seen him before. Isaiah Mustafa is “the man your man could smell like” and star of Old Spice’s newest TV ads – first launched during the Super Bowl earlier this year.

People seem to love this guy, so much that Old Spice saw fit to thank fans personally for their support – using the interactive world of social media.

Last week Mustafa took comments and questions from Twitter, Facebook, reddit, Digg and YouTube and personally responded to fans with short video messages. The clips were clever, the lines were funny and the character was hilariously brilliant (and not too hard on the eyes either). Last I counted, he released about 180+ videos, generating over 5.9 million views and over 22,500 comments. Although the stunt was short-lived (lasting a little over 48 hours), viewer response outpaced some of the most popular viral videos to date. Some are even calling it the best social media campaign the ad world has ever seen.

“In a way there’s nothing magical that we’ve done here,” Wieden + Kennedy’s Global Interactive Creative Director Iain Tait, told RWW. “We just brought a character to life using the social channels we all [social media geeks] use every day. But we’ve also taken a loved character and created new episodic content in real time.”

The creators of this idea were spot on in their judgment. At the end of the day consumers want to feel as though the company really cares. What better way to show them than a stunt like this one – where the face of Old Spice responds to a tweet you posted only minutes ago? The campaign was simple, inexpensive, interactive and a perfect example of viral marketing at its best. Other companies are sure to follow suit.

My only regret is that, of all the celebrities and fans, I didn’t get a shout out. But as Mustafa put it, “I am just one ridiculously handsome man. I can’t write to everyone.”

(Sigh) I guess I can forgive him.

Check out his personalized videos here.

-Bryna Reid

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