Advertising agencies have been getting a bit of a walloping at the hands of social media in recent times, but something I saw today made me pause.

The new campaign for Old Spice is a piece of genius that has everyone shaking their heads asking how they do it. Briefly, if you Tweet about Old Spice the “Old Spice guy” picks it up and answers it personally via YouTube.

Unless there is some really clever technology involved, it certainly looks like they are instant scripting these clips and getting them out there, all the time with high production values.

(It did bring to mind the weird and rather disturbing Subservient Chicken campaign of a few years ago which I could never fathom)

It’s funny, clever and original and of course has been an instant social media sensation. I’d put good money on it picking up silverware at Cannes next year and any number of other awards.

It’s the work of ad agency Wieden and Kennedy who obviously missed the meeting about advertising  being history.

It brought to mind an episode in my career a few years ago when I was running Connectpoint PR (now Amaze).

The building we occupied attracted smokers from nearby offices because the design offered shelter from the weather but also meant we had a knot of people by our door, sitting on the windowsills and dropping cigarette ends by the dozen each day.

Polite requests had no effect so we discussed a solution at a management meeting  where, as normal, the ad agency’s creative director Simon ‘Bertie’ Broadbent was doodling in his pad.

Today’s doodle was a coffin with a large sign above reading “Smoking Booth” and a large arrow pointing down.

‘Ha-ha very funny’ was the general reaction but somebody said, ‘no hang on, let’s do it’.

So we did and for a few days there was a real coffin screwed to the wall outside our offices and because I was the MD of PR I ended up doing the media interviews and the story went worldwide.

You can still find a few of them on line in media from Stockport to Singapore and you might conclude that it was a genius bit of PR for a small agency to get global coverage.

Not at all, it was a work of creative genius plus the willingness to take a risk, the channel didn’t come into it.

Old Spice have had the balls to risk it and I hope the rewards are great for all.