Going viral

I recently turned down a blogging gig that was to write about guerilla and viral marketing. When I saw that they wanted praise and applause for insidious and deceptive ad campaigns, I felt more like vomiting than playing along.

I had to defer to Bill Hicks on the matter.

You see, they are now scheming (in league wth Satan and Mammon) to force their employees to create these degrading and even dangerous stunts in the hopes of selling more crap that people don't need. Soon, you'll be asked to perform like a trained monkey and go dance for the customers in the middle of the workday while some douchebag covertly videos the thing. That's where it's leading.

Perhaps the revolution is closer than we think?

I'm glad people reject these assholes and their misleading videos. It is the deception that pisses me off the most. Advertising has always been mostly deception (only showing positives, ignoring negatives), and now even the fact of it being advertising at all is hidden. This should be rejected and not passed along virally to annoy others. May the creators rot in hell. May their efforts whither and die.
 
polfilmblog said:
I recently turned down a blogging gig that was to write about guerilla and viral marketing. When I saw that they wanted praise and applause for insidious and deceptive ad campaigns, I felt more like vomiting than playing along.

I had to defer to Bill Hicks on the matter.

You see, they are now scheming (in league wth Satan and Mammon) to force their employees to create these degrading and even dangerous stunts in the hopes of selling more crap that people don't need. Soon, you'll be asked to perform like a trained monkey and go dance for the customers in the middle of the workday while some douchebag covertly videos the thing. That's where it's leading.

Perhaps the revolution is closer than we think?

I'm glad people reject these assholes and their misleading videos. It is the deception that pisses me off the most. Advertising has always been mostly deception (only showing positives, ignoring negatives), and now even the fact of it being advertising at all is hidden. This should be rejected and not passed along virally to annoy others. May the creators rot in hell. May their efforts whither and die.
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Google: Westside Rentals Guy.

See how close your second paragraph is to the truth.
 
Hindsight is 20/20...no one here commenting on how to make videos go viral has, themselves, started from scratch and done so.
 
Gary Huff said:
Hindsight is 20/20...no one here commenting on how to make videos go viral has, themselves, started from scratch and done so.
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I suppose we only expected maybe 1 million or so views from the Zelda trailer, but we did in fact make that, ourselves, from scratch.

By we I mean Sam B did most of the work, and we helped! haha.

I'm commenting from experience, research and development. And have been asked to concoct viral campaigns for two major cosmetic brands. It's just not easy...

I may pursue that for the money when I finish shooting the feature.
 
polfilmblog said:
crap that people don't need.
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CRAP PEOPLE DON'T NEED
52" full HD LED 3D TVs
iPads
Angry Birds for iPhone
Independent films

ITEMS NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL
Food
Transportation
Life long friendships
Medicin

In what business do you operate, and which of these two categories does it fall under?
 
Don't forget "clever factor" or "amazing performance".

The weird hand dance video of the two hipsters, that got turned into...... of course: McDonalds commercial.

The evolution of dance, etc....
 
I feel your pain polfilmblog. I did Promax once when I was a promo editor and the content of most of the panels unnerved me. They were totally divorced from the actual content. The value of what people were selling seemed irrelevant. The advertising seemed an end unto itself. Art and commerce have always been uneasy bedfellows but commerce seems to have overtaken the art. In a capitalistic society products are ideally made to enrich the lives of other people while making a profit for the creators. Advertising should reflect a product that has some value for the consumer, it should not be a product itself, or be designed to obscure the fact that the product has no actual value.
 
Batutta said:
I feel your pain polfilmblog. I did Promax once when I was a promo editor and the content of most of the panels unnerved me. They were totally divorced from the actual content. The value of what people were selling seemed irrelevant. The advertising seemed an end unto itself. Art and commerce have always been uneasy bedfellows but commerce seems to have overtaken the art. In a capitalistic society products are ideally made to enrich the lives of other people while making a profit for the creators. Advertising should reflect a product that has some value for the consumer, it should not be a product itself, or be designed to obscure the fact that the product has no actual value.
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This is off topic, but I would argue there's AT LEAST as much art in putting TRANSFORMERS 2 together as ANTICHRIST.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
This is off topic, but I would argue there's AT LEAST as much art in putting TRANSFORMERS 2 together as ANTICHRIST.
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I wouldn't argue, but it's irrelevant. Transformers 2 is a product that has value for some people. I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with advertising that is nearly divorced from the product, such as many viral ads, or when corporations push a brand and not a good, useful product. Then advertising becomes something more corrosive and insidious. When companies start believing their product doesn't matter as much as the advertising, quality is usually the first thing to go out the window.
 
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Batutta said:
or when corporations push a brand and not a good, useful product.
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ipad-420x0.jpg
 
Kholi said:
I suppose we only expected maybe 1 million or so views from the Zelda trailer, but we did in fact make that, ourselves, from scratch.
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First, good work on that trailer. I remember that (wasn't fooled, but still impressed).

HOWEVER, if I remember correctly, it was commissioned by IGN and heavily touted on the website. Plus, it was labeled as an authentic trailer for a widely-regarded property. I wouldn't really count it as the same thing. You didn't take something no one would originally care about and make it go viral. There was a lot of help.

EDIT: Not sure if the iPod photo is supposed to be only a joke (made me chuckle a bit), but the iPad didn't use viral marketing.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
It was meant to be an example of when a corporation pushes a brand and not a useful product.
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But their products are useful for alot of people...and they are usually good. I don't meet many people who downright hate their mac, or their ipod, or their iphone. Most love it. Those that don't usually have very specific needs. Apple doesn't make cheap crap and just slap their logo on it, which is what happens with a lot of companies. A lot of brands don't even make their own stuff anymore.
 
Gary Huff said:
First, good work on that trailer. I remember that (wasn't fooled, but still impressed).

HOWEVER, if I remember correctly, it was commissioned by IGN and heavily touted on the website. Plus, it was labeled as an authentic trailer for a widely-regarded property. I wouldn't really count it as the same thing. You didn't take something no one would originally care about and make it go viral. There was a lot of help.

EDIT: Not sure if the iPod photo is supposed to be only a joke (made me chuckle a bit), but the iPad didn't use viral marketing.
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I'm not sure how any of those statements, while at least one is factually incorrect, disqualifies the Zelda Trailer, a video posted online that attracted 10 Million plus views in the span of a week, as a viral video.
 
Gary Huff said:
Apple doesn't really either, outside of the design at least.
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The design and the ease of user interface is what Apple products are all about though, and that's all developed in house. They probably never did the actual manufacturing except in the early days when Wozniak put them together on his kitchen table...Anyway, let's not derail this thread and turn it into an Apple VS PC debate....
 
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