Old Spice introduced body wash for men in 2003. And with total body wash sales recently eclipsing those for bar soap , many male brands (including Dial, Irish Spring and Nivea) swooped in to get a piece of the pie. In fact, by 2009 the competition had become so fierce that Old Spice’s share in the male body wash segment was starting to slip.

To make things more difficult, Unilever announced it would be launching a big campaign for Dove Men+Care body wash in 2010. With legions of loyal female shoppers, Dove was in a great position to win big in the male body wash segment. To protect its share in the category, Old Spice needed a big idea.

The answer came in the form of “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” a campaign that targeted both men and women with a message that celebrated the possibilities that come with the use of a manly scented body wash.

Launched just after the Super Bowl, the campaign quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Suddenly, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” amassed millions of fans who enjoyed his charm, charisma and manly ways.

The question, however, quickly became, what next? We had already started to build a dialogue between men and women around the nation (in a low-involvement category, no less). But how could we capitalize on this success? How could we use “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” to engage with Old Spice’s fans on a deeper, more experiential level?And so the “Response” campaign was born. We created an interactive experience in which “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” personally responded to his fans on the Internet in real time.

The innovative idea not only changed the way brands interact with the web and became one of the largest and fastest-growing interactive campaigns in history, but it also helped Old Spice to increase unit sales of body wash by 125 percent, solidifying the brand as the number-one body wash brand for men.