So those Old Spice videos DID boost sales after all!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will no doubt have seen Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man” viral video campaign.

Stats on the videos, which featured former NFL star turned actor Isaiah Mustafa, have shown it to be a huge viral success, achieving millions of video views far quicker than previous hit YouTube star Susan Boyle (please God, no more!). (My friend, Kelly Forbes, did a nice piece on the success of the campaign for the Social Media Penguin blog. And I’d also like to point out that this clever cookie actually spotted its viral potential as far back as March!)

But the question everyone was asking (well, certainly in social media circles) was did the campaign actually deliver an increase in sales? After all, brand awareness is nice, but it doesn’t really pay the bills!

Well the answer, according to The Nielsen Co. and new data from SymphonyIRI Group, is a resounding YES!

Nielsen have said that the sales of Old Spice Body Wash, as featured in the campaign, increased by 11% over the last year. More significantly however, over the last 3 months sales have risen by 55% and jumped an incredible 107% in the past month.

Now clearly it’s only been in the last few weeks that the campaign has really captured the public’s attention, but as people’s shower gel supplies begin to run low, I would expect to see that number increase further.

I’ve noticed some folks on twitter comment that it’s only the like-for-like yearly figures that paint a true picture, but why would that be the case? As far as I’m aware shower gel isn’t a seasonal purchase, unless you’re Hedgehog!

As someone who advises businesses on social media adoption, I can tell you that the ‘ROI question’ is probably one of the ones that comes up most.

Clearly it’s not the only measure, and for some organisations it will never be their primary driver, but there can be no doubt that being able to demonstrate that social media positively impacts the bottom line is increasingly going to become a key focus for businesses.

One thing is for sure, you can bet that Wieden & Kennedy (the US based advertising agency responsible for creating the Old Spice campaign) will now be building these latest sales figures into every client pitch they do from here on in.

For my part, I’m just glad that the whole ‘impact of social media’ debate seems to becoming increasingly popular.

Perhaps now we’ll start to see fewer businesses sucked in by social media gurus who tell them all they need to worry about is their number of followers, baby!

And just in case you’re in any doubt about the last point, have a look at this fantastic piece of research by Meeyoung Cha from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Her paper is called “The Million Follower Fallacy“.