NBC Bitch Slaps Detractors of YouTube Promotions With Smackdown

bill_nbc_promo_guy.jpg

In a very un-TV network-like manner and in response to freaks like this who are offended any company would dare to promote anything on YouTube, NBC created a video called Bill the Promo Guy in which Bill asks viewers to understand he does the promos because the salary he receives for producing them puts his son through prep school and buys his daughter a horse. NBC has arrived. It gets YouTube. It gets the video response. It gets this groovin' social media thing. Ah fuck it, it's just another ad. But a good one. A really, really good one. Kudos.

Written by Steve Hall    Comments (6)     File: Best, Online, Promotions, Strange, Television, Trends and Culture     Sep-22-06  
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Comments

I truly loved this and yes, NBC does get it. They proved it with the meteoric rise of Jeff Zucker who *really* gets it.

Posted by: Barbara on September 22, 2006 02:25 PM

Well holy shit!
NBC created a great piece of marketing that is both amusing AND pushes product - THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!
As far as who pushes what where - who the hell cares! Look at what's going on on MySpace and all the other social networks - whatever - you don't like it? don't browse it! The same kind of people are the ones who complain about chain stores but opt to shop at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods rather than the mom and pop grocery store next door.
Eat me:)

Posted by: Spyro on September 22, 2006 05:05 PM

hi-laaaar-ious.

any company that's cool enough to mock themselves is a-ok in my book.

Posted by: khy on September 22, 2006 08:54 PM

Thanks for the heads up on this one. Clearly Bill the Promo Guy understands the YouTube zeitgeist better than agency.com -- maybe Subway will hire him!

Posted by: Craig on September 23, 2006 09:56 AM

And, yet...I can't bring myself to really care. When will this navel-gazing fascination with viral end? It's just another tool for marketers. Some will do it well. Some won't. No different than television or radio or print or whatever. The question of whether viral, YouTube efforts do anything for sales is still far from decided.

Posted by: theo kie on September 23, 2006 01:01 PM

If you caught this weeks episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, you’ll note the irony. I see this as network TV’s response to the increasingly blurred line between big bucks network TV and regular Joe with a camcorder, high-speed Internet connection and wild imagination. With the latter encroaching so pervasively on the former, this is merely a natural reaction.

Personally, I will be interested to see this new media phenomenon play out. With the increasing popularity of and demand for digital media, will previously-guarded, high-dollar footage (like that from National Geographic, for example) begin to more frequently and affordably make its way onto the desktops of these new aspiring filmmakers? I think so and I am excited to see what they do with it.

Posted by: Kevin on September 28, 2006 04:43 PM

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