We Didn’t Start The Viral - Commercial Successes


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Todd linked to this excellent viral homage to some of the notable viral videos of the last few years. Believe me they list a hell of a lot, but what I found interesting was the number of deliberate commercial “virals” for want of a better word. These are the companies/people that managed to achieve what I believe is quite a feat, to launch a deliberate campaign that “goes viral”.

Company/commercial
The Dark Knight (batman)
VW - Unpimp your ride
Burger King (creepy king and subservient chicken related)
Saturday Night Live (mostly Lonely Island stuff which of course is all coming off youtube because NBC thinks everyone is going to go to Hulu.com)
Borat
Snakes On A Plane
Sony Bravia
Will It Blend - Blend Tek
John West Salmon
Halo 2 - I love bees ARG by

Indie:
Ask a ninja
Lonely Girl

I may have missed some, feel free to add in the comments and I’ll update.

5 Responses to “We Didn’t Start The Viral - Commercial Successes”


  1. 1 Daniel R

    First buff, shirtless guy dancing to trance: Technoviking!

  2. 2 Leah

    Burger King (an Edelman client, where I work) also had a hit with Simpsonize Me.

    For as much time as I spend online, I only recognized about half of these. Must get out from under my rock, apparently.

  3. 3 Xavier VESPA

    This video says so much about how the Internet has changed the media. Tx for sharing

    @ Leah: If someone can track all the dumb viral videos outthere in the Web, then that person needs help.

  4. 4 Karl

    I consider myself a bit of an aficionado of teh viral and I didn’t recognize a few either, kind of demonstrates what a difficult area it is to track.

  5. 5 Hans Suter

    “campaign that “goes viral”” might be the rule. Then there will occasional exceptions. Reminds me of Gossage: people read what’s interesting to them, sometimes it’s an ad.

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