Hands down one of my favorite TV commercials in recent memory has to be the Old Spice “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign starring @IsaiahMustafa.  You probably know it better as the “I’m on a Horse” ad.  Not only did the campaign take home multiple awards at Cannes this year, but it truly crossed over to pop culture (my favorite is “I’m on a cake”).

Now the Old Spice team has dialed it up through a stellar social media campaign that takes engagement to a whole new level.  Lots of brands have used Twitter as a way to have a dialogue with consumers.  But in what I think is a first, Old Spice is actually doing a YouTube video response to people who mention the Old Spice campaign on Twitter.  Even better, the video responses actually have Isaiah Mustafa responding in character in the video.  So far celebs like @TheEllenShow, @ApoloOhno and @KevinRose have been lucky enough to receive responses.    My personal favorite has to be the response to @TheEllenShow [embedded video below]

Old Spice Responds to @TheEllenShow

Disclaimer – I work at P&G, which owns the Old Spice brand.  But it is still a really cool digital marketing campaign.

More brilliant work from the folks at Nike.   The blending of marketing and entertainment continues…

One of the great properties that I get to work on at P&G Productions is the People’s Choice Awards.  In it’s 36th year, I think the 2010 show might just be one of the most exciting ones yet.  Yeah I am biased but we have announced Mark Burnett as our Executive Producer, moved the show to the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles and formed a pretty cool alliance with MySpace.  Those are some cool changes.

And with all that, we have also made it even easier to cast your vote for this year’s winners with voting on both PeoplesChoice.com and on MySpace.  So have you voted yet? [end commercial message]

Are your fans passionate enough about your brand that they would make your ads for you?  If you are Etsy, than the answer is yes thanks to their Handmade Moment contest. I don’t know about you, but if I saw this on TV, I would have never guessed it was “Handmade.”

Today is the official launch of “The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning” by my good friend Bob Gilbreath of Bridge Worldwide. Since Pete Blackshaw did such a great job summarizing the book over at AdAge, I will save you another recap. After all, Pete summed up the reason to read the book best when he wrote:

The book is a critical, timely and enriching read for anyone looking to succeed in a world of consumer control, media fragmentation and content co-creation. It’s an honest diagnosis of advertising and marketing pains, but also a practical road map to digging ourselves out of our own hole.

I particularly love that last point because it is something I have touched on before, though not so eloquently. Since the advent of television, we as marketers have been obsessed with mass media and interruption advertising. We prided ourselves on being “better” or “best” and we shouted those claims in the face of consumers.

And we have dug a hole where many people have just stopped listening to us.

In “The Next Evolution of Marketing”, Bob helps shows us a way out of this mess. The book is packed with timely, real world examples and the experience is even carried through with a pretty nifty iPhone app so you can see the examples (not just read about them).

To give a peak, here is a link to download afree chapter of the book. If that isn’t reason enough, Bob himself provides a great summary in the below embedded video:

“The Next Evolution of Marketing” definitely makes my list of Brand Manager Must Reads (and not just because Hard Knox Life is mentioned on Page 265). But seriously, if you are a Brand Manager or Marketer looking to understand where the future is headed, you need to pick up this book.

Well done Bob and the whole team at Cincinnati-based, Bridge Worldwide.