Old Spice – It’s the campaign your campaign can smell like.

In short: Old Spice has redefined what a social media campaign is capable of. From this point forward, all social media campaigns will be judged against the success of this campaign.

For an overview of just some of what W+K has done for Old Spice, check out this NOTCOT Blog Post.

The piece of this campaign that has received the most attention is a series of YouTube videos, where Isa Mustafa (the Old Spice actor) makes more than 180 personalized videos that address everyone from Kevin Rose and Perez Hilton to random YouTube users who had commented on the original Old Spice videos. One person even requested that Isa make a wedding proposal video for his girlfriend:

(She said yes.)

The results speak for themselves: 5.9 million views and 22,500+ comments IN TWO DAYS.

In addition, many advertising/marketing blogs have written lengthy case studies about the success of this campaign, and even many of the traditional news outlets have started to cover the cultural phenomenon that this campaign has created.

Following the release of the videos, Google’s CFO said that Old Spice Is The Future, and Alyssa Milano agreed to date Isa if Old Spice donated $100k to the oil spill cleanup efforts:

It’s important to note that this was not just a social media campaign, and was done as an extension of a major media spend which established the character and helped to build the campaign’s awareness, but it does show how you can take a traditional campaign to the next level through the use of clever and well executed social media efforts.

Side Note: One interesting media buy for the Old Spice campaign was BustedTees, where they sponsored Free Shipping for a week:

Calvin Klein Puts Up A QR Billboard – In New York and Los Angeles, Calvin Klein put up a billboard that featured nothing more than a giant QR code and the call to action “Get It Uncensored”.

Users who scanned the code would then be able to view an ‘uncensored’ 40-second commercial featuring Calvin Klein models, and were then given the option to share the ad through Facebook and Twitter.

CNNMoney Features Best Places to Live with Gowalla – As part of Money magazine’s annual 100 Best Places to Live list, CNNMoney has partnered with Gowalla to help people discover the best parts of each city.

Through the partnership, users can take branded trips through many of the cities, and each of the top 25 cities has a trending list of locations where you can see which spots are the most popular amongst Gowalla users.

Help Vince! – The New England Patriots have teamed up with geo-location service SCVNGR to create a city wide scavenger hunt where fans can try to track down Vince Wilfork’s “missing” Super Bowl championship ring.

Using the app, fans will seek out more than 200 places throughout New England, complete challenges at numerous locations, and earn points and prizes for top scorers. The grand prize includes lunch with a Patriots player, and goes to the first person to successfully find the ring.

Barbie Gets Social – Barbie is releasing a new “Video Girl” doll that includes a working video camera and comes with video editing software that girls can use to make their own videos. They developed the doll in collaboration with iJustine, a prominent video blogger, and are launching the doll with a promotion on Foursquare and Twitter:

Fiber For Communities – When Google offered to bring ultra-high speed fiber Internet to a chosen community, they were overwhelmed by more than 1,100 community responses, as well as 200,000+ responses from individuals.

In response, Google created Fiber For Communities, a site where they can “provide additional resources for anyone interested in ultra high-speed Internet access”.

Small Discoveries – As part of their 25th anniversary, Discovery Channel created a program called My Discovery, where viewers and users could share tweet-length discoveries at any scale, from personal life to the wider world, and then Discovery would show the best of them online and on-air.

As Twitter notes, this campaign is interesting because instead of focusing on thousands and thousands of tweets, they chose to highlight a carefully-chosen group of tweets that “surprise, delight, or tell a story”.

Patron Cocktail Lab – Patron Tequila has created the Patron Cocktail Lab application on Facebook, where users can create new drinks in response to a challenge that Patron posts each month.

Once a drink gets created, Patron will have pro mixologists give ideas and feedback through the Patron Facebook wall, and users can vote on their favorites. Then, at the end of each month, a winning drink will be selected and will become an official, Patron-recognized drink.

Starbucks Has 10 Million Fans – On the heels of Lady Gaga reaching 10 Million Facebook Fans, Starbucks has become the first brand to reach the milestone, making Facebook an important channel in their ongoing social media efforts.

Facebook Has 500 Million Users – The rumor that’s been buzzing around the social media world for the last few days is that Facebook is preparing to announce its 500 millionth user, which would mean that they are adding an average of 100 million new users every five months.

At this rate, it won’t be long before any campaign that wants to reach a majority of the online audience is either run through Facebook, or risks leaving a large number of people out of the loop.

Hulu Serves A Lot Of Ads – According to ComScore, Hulu now serves more than 560 million video ads per month, making them the largest online video ad server, and placing them ahead of even Google, which serves just over 200 million across all of its properties, including YouTube.

Quick Hits:

• Moo has posted a few of the recent business card redesigns from their Business Card Project, which was featured in a previous Social Media Digest.
• Sony Pictures is the latest to use Twitter’s new Sponsored Trending Topic ad, with a sponsorship of the hashtag #SocialNetwork for the upcoming film about the founding of Facebook, called The Social Network.

NBC Fan It – NBC has created their own affinity program, where viewers can take challenges and earn points that can be used for rewards from the network. You can also connect your Fan It account to your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and/or MySpace accounts to earn extra points by ‘checking-in’ to each of those services when you’re watching a show.

Google TV – At Google’s I/O conference, they took the wraps off of Google TV, which aims to combine the TV you know and love with the freedom and the power of the Internet.

Gulf Coast Spill – In response to the Gulf Coast oil spill, a group of technology and web design experts put together GulfOilSpill.com to help communities share information about the spill. Using either the web app or a mobile app, users can upload images and text reports of the spill, which then get shared with the world through an interactive map and an associated Twitter account.

The Social Media Experiment – To help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, one man is trying to go 30 days without communicating through any means but social media.

Hide A Case – From 1967 – 1991, Canadian Club Whiskey hid 25 cases of whiskey in some of the more remote places in the world. Since then, only 16 have ever been found, so Canadian Club has decided to send a few lucky individuals on the adventure of a lifetime to try and find the most exciting case.

Facebook Page Authentication Requirement – As part of their Pages Quality Initiative, Facebook changed their Page rules to make it so that only pages with more than 10,000 fans, or those authenticated by a Facebook Rep to set a custom FBML tab as their landing page. After a virtual riot by page admins, Facebook re-investigated the situation and decided to remove the requirement, though they didn’t guarantee that the change would not be made in the future, and only promised that next time they would give more notice and lead time ahead of the change.

FarmVille Produce – Not content with just controlling all virtual produce, Zynga has branched out into real produce as well with their latest promotion. The sponsorship of Green Giant vegetables at local supermarkets includes a special FarmVille sticker, and buyers will earn free FarmVille Cash to bridge the virtual and the real worlds in a very innovative way.

EA Double Down Challenge – An employee of Activision ate a Double Down sandwich in 58 seconds, so Disney Interactive responded by eating one in 35.8 seconds. Rather than just be content with their win however, they decided to call out EA, who responded by eating a Double Down in 26 seconds, while also raising $1000 for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer thanks to the EA Outreach donation matching program.

Openbook – Ever wondered what people are sharing on Facebook that they probably shouldn’t? Openbook allows you to search Facebook’s API for publicly shared data, and suggests terms for things that the user probably doesn’t want you to see.

YouTube Turns Five – On May 17, YouTube celebrated their fifth anniversary, and also revealed that they now serve more than 2 BILLION views per day.

Mayors of Starbucks Get Discounts Through Foursquare – Starbucks is the first company to offer a nationwide special through Foursquare with their mayor rewards, which gives the mayor of each Starbucks (the person who has checked-in the most to each location) a $1 off coupon for their new custom Frappuccinos each time they visit the store.

Hulu Ad Tailor – Hulu rolled out a number of significant changes recently, but one of the most interesting is their new Ad Tailor feature, which will allow users to give feedback to Hulu (and the advertiser) about whether an ad was relevant to them or not. Users will also be able to answer questions that will help Hulu tailor the advertising to their unique needs, which will hopefully be a win-win for viewers and advertisers alike, as more targeted ads can get served to a more interested audience.

Drive The A-Team Van – Through the use of a plug-in, you can drive the A-Team’s famous van through your favorite city on Google Maps, unlocking custom A-Team previews and content as a reward for reaching specific achievements.

Pizza Hut iPhone App – In addition to ordering up a pizza and playing a pizza delivery game while you wait for your pizza to arrive, Pizza Hut Australia has added Augmented Reality functionality to their iPhone app to allow you to find the Pizza Hut nearest you by using the video feed from your cell phone’s camera to look around at an interactive ‘map’ of nearby locations.