We're sure we don't need to explain why we're weirded out by I Am a Little Lad from Starburst, an effort to promote their new Berries n' Creme candy. Thrown together by TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, the video features a little man who appears to secretly hate life but remains gung-ho long enough to teach us how to do the dance his mother made him perform in exchange for berries and creme.
We learned the hard way that when children are made to dance against their will, they maintain the tradition out of a unique kind of sadism. Nonetheless, the berries n' creme dance is fun and you can bet we forced a few new underlings to memorize the moves before we relinquished control and let them go home.
Lest you think we're pure evil, the little lad did spawn a number of followers who learned the catchy hop voluntarily.
This time last year Jonathan Schoenberg of TDA Advertising & Design conducted a guest lecture in Boulder, CO and smashed the disruptive cell phone of a student with hardly a pause in his sentence. Naturally, somebody recorded it.
The video is startling but not nearly as exciting as the one of the UCLA student getting repeatedly tased. Even so, in 12 months it's made multiple public TV and news cameos on ABC Nightly News, MSNBC, CNN and O'Reilly Factor, not even counting appearances in New Zealand and Canada. To date it straddles nearly 3 million views and is the 16th most-discussed video ever.
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Youtube's 2006 video awards is over and winners are receiving a reception once experienced only by winners of MTV's VMA in the early '90's. The breakdowns follow.
OK Go wins Most Creative for Here It Goes Again, closely followed by Where the Hell is Matt? Why that deserves "Most Creative" we'll never know, but whatever. Apparently the universe awards gamers who dance and civil engineers who sing in equal measures of WTF.
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On March 23 ay 8PM, VH1 will air its Web Junk Presents: 40 Greatest Internet Superstars and name Gary Brolsma, otherwise known as the Numa Numa guy, the number one internet star. The special will highlight the 40 most memorable internet stars of all time which will include the Star Wars Kid, Lonelygirl15, Tila Tequila, Trin Guy, Mahir, Perez Hilton, the Diet Coke/Mentos guys and many more. It outta be good for a few laughs.
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More often than not the big media cat-chase for the elusive hot viral comes up short. This could be for a ton of reasons - the ideas are too contrived or simply out of touch with the demo.
LA-based Feed Company put together Social Video 101: a Primer, an example-ridden tutorial on why some Youtube "virals" work and others don't. Will your video start a conversation? Is it funny? Is it sexy? Is it something you'd share with your friends?
"Viral is video that you're prepared to share with your friends," says CEO Josh Felser of Grouper. "If you're not prepared to share it with your friends, it's not viral video."
We'd like to say this sounds like mostly common sense. The unfortunate truth is if it were, major media entities would be more successful than they have been, and to be fair they're getting better.
That's not to say we don't still have a lot to learn from the unlikely geniuses of Smosh, whose Pokemon theme song generated a bewildering wildfire fanbase. And when you've figured out why, you'll probably be holding the key to the secret of life.
Yesterday, we asked you to take a look at a YouTube campaign for the marketing book Punk Marketing and tell us which of the two models, who strip while reading excerpts from the book, you though was hotter. Perhaps because Cleo did three videos to Anna's one, Cleo suffered the burden of burnout. I mean, how many time can you watch the same woman strip? Oh wait, that's a stupid question. In any event, newcomer Anna trumped Cleo with a resounding 75 percent of the vote. What was it? The blond hair? The girlie jean skirt? Do tell.
Hardee's and Carl's Jr. are up to their spicy hotness again. If you remember, this is the restaurant chain that had Paris Hilton slather herself all over a Bently while eating a giant hamburger. Now, with help from Spacedog Interactive, the chain has enlisted the services of another delicious-looking (hey, we're talking about food here so we can use the word delicious if we want!) blond named Ashley Hartman who takes center stage on the company's Spicy Buffalo site and alluringly frolics about for your pleasure. It's all to promote the chain's new Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.
On the site, you'll find a description of the sandwich, a history of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, a behind the scenes look at the commercial shoot and, of course, the spots themselves. The best line in the commercials: Good thing chickens have big breasts. Yes, the entire thing is laced with double entendres and we love everyone of them. Bring on the cause groups!
For album "Year Zero," Nine Inch Nails sets fans on a scavenger hunt with a series of webpages predicting the future. One example is Another Version of the Truth, a picture of a seemingly gentler America. When you click and drag your mouse, the pastoral picture reveals a desolate wasteland.
The first of the sites was discovered by fans who put together a set of highlighted words on a tour shirt. After that a spiral of other sites were found with roughly the same end-of-the-world, fascist/religious theme.
The effort was orchestrated by 42 Entertainment, the mad geniuses responsible for the Halo 2 campaign that sparked a dramatic nationwide search for a princess trapped in cyberspace.
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We reported Auntie Anne's V-day viral blast once already but we just noticed She's So Twisted for the first time and thought, how awesome would it be to hang out with someone who was bent out of shape all the time?
Not very. But this chick seems good-natured enough and we like how her little friend drags her around on a little rollie-board. Having a pretzel friend must be way funner than having a puppy or a ferret. We'd try being pretzels for a day but our drunker companions might eat us.
Symantec's RockDotRock has added a Valentine's Day Serenade feature that allows you to send a customized message to your loved one (as long as they are o the list of 200 names) sung by the heavy metal rockers who grace the site. It's a nice continuation of the decidedly very different software campaign.
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