Update: I changed the title to "One Ad Campaign" as that's a bit more descriptive.

I am, of course, talking about the wildly successful online promotion that Old Spice ran yesterday, where the ad team spent the entire day taping and posting personalized responses to messages on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more.  In case you haven't seen the new Old Spice campaign, you can watch their latest commercial here... but this campaign has been so pervasive I'm guessing most  of you have.

It's been a few hours, so by now this statistic is already out of date, but as of this morning Youtube surfers had spent over 11 years worth of time watching the Old Spice personalized responses, and I'd imagine that's only the beginning. Over the coming days and weeks, I'm sure their videos will get even more views.  I'm sure it wasn't cheap to have the ad company spend the entire day crafting these video responses, but I'd be very surprised if the exposure Old Spice body wash received yesterday wasn't a great deal more economical than the cost of a national television ad campaign. I'd also be surprised if the exposure they received yesterday wasn't much more effective than a tv ad campaign because instead of interrupting the viewer (which is what a commercial does), people sought out the videos, watched them, and shared their favorites with their friends.

This is probably the best piece of online marketing I've ever seen. Not only did they leverage several forms of media, but the uniqueness of the campaign captured the attention of celebrities, popular media programs, athletes and talk show hosts, many of whom provided free promotion of the campaign to their own audience.  This helped build things to a fever pitch (and most definitely resulted in significant amounts of lost productivity yesterday), and all the while the audience was being sold something.  I'm positive that sales of Old Spice body wash are going to go through the roof after yesterday's promotion.

It just goes to show that online marketing and traditional marketing are getting more entwined every single day, and when you get the mix of technology and marketing just right, the results are incredible. It's already happening, but in the coming years, the blurred line between website development and promotion and traditional marketing will be completely erased.  Companies who want to survive will have to bring both adept technical and design abilities along with a keen marketing sense to the table, eotherwise they will not measure up to the needs of the market.