TWINTEL Solutions

"I'm on a horse."

Those are the words that turned the once-stale Old Spice brand into something refreshing and new. The folks at Proctor and Gamble, who make Old Spice, took it a step further last week when they launched an Old Spice Guy response campaign, creating dozens of personalized responses to the tweets, emails and Facebook posts from his many fans, including George Stephanopolous (presidential abs!) and Alyssa Milano.

Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb did a bang up job giving us a behind the scenes look at how the campaign worked. At this point, I have to confess that I've watched every one of the videos. Between that and the media overload about the ab-tastic spokesman, I've been thinking a lot about what a campaign like this means, especially for nonprofits. Like the Red Cross text message campaign and any one of the Humane Society Facebook fundraisers before it, I'm certain this is a campaign the sector will be dying to replicate. So, what can we learn?

Your campaign has to be one, if not both of the following: funny and immediate.

Extremely hilarious things go viral, we know this. We haven't collectively watched cat in a fishbowl over ONE MILLION TIMES because it's socially relevant.

Funny is not enough, though.

The first time Mr. Old Spice graced our screens? Hilarious. The second commercial? Meh. What made this most recent campaign work is not just that it's so funny, but that it's funny AND immediate. The near real-time responses made this campaign a sensation.

You can also achieve immediacy by tying your campaign to recent events. However you do it, we know that immediacy is key.

I would also argue that immediacy is a value you should embrace, and not just for your marketing or fundraising campaigns. Of course the people to whom The Old Spice Guy responded were surprised: it was a very public response that happened very quickly. How do you respond to the people who contact you? Do your donors get the same flat thank you letter? Clearly, you can't thank every donor with a personalized video -- but you can embrace the spirit of this campaign in every aspect of your work.

It's also important to ask, "What's all this buzz good for?"  Did it translate to more sales for Old Spice? Remember when Burger King went viral? Business Week doesn't think it did much for the company. If you finally get those million page views, will you get what you're looking for?

Building buzz is useless unless it helps you meet your goals.

Are there any other lessons we can learn from the man in the towel? 

(Editor's Note: On top of being brilliant and one of the most ethical journalists I know, Marshall Kirkpatrick is a standup guy. You should read his stuff on RWW and follow him on Twitter.)