EA virals in the news
The EA virals were featured on the news in Britain last night in an unintentionally hilarious piece bemoaning the influx of commercials on YouTube. In a stunning revelation that surely left viewers reeling, the presenter gravely informed the nation that-
"Some companies seem to be using YouTube to push their own adverts."
NO! Say it ain't so!
They showed the Rooney clip, then cut to Paul Kemp-Robertson, editor of Contagious Magazine, who basically complimented us on a job well done:
"This is classic viral marketing, there's a lot of very clever strategy gone into this. It looks like something accidental people have maybe stumbled across that perhaps shouldn't really be there."
The item covered other recent virals (Mentos/Diet Coke, Levi's giant marionette and General Motor's flying cars), then the reporter says,
"You'd think this would have YouTube purists pounding their heads on their keyboards in disgust."
What purists? It's mostly a bunch of kids sharing their favorite commercials and TV clips. Content is content. Nobody cares where it comes from. The report concludes:
"So, Wayne Rooney as he really is or a clever marketing ploy. You decide. Either way, this is one virus that's bound to catch on."
The news people deliver all this with an air of disgust, and yet they're using our work to fill a 5-minute section of their program and sell the advertising space around it. Now THAT's a clever ploy.
There's a genuine naiveté in the mainstream media with regard to this kind of advertising. 'Don't people just HATE advertising on the Internet?' they cry. 'Maybe in 1996,' we reply. And how can a community of this many millions of people be dictated to by what he terms 'purists'? *sigh*...
Once again, a nice indicator of the fact that the punters are way ahead of the news makers.
Posted by: Scrawny | 19 October 2006 at 12:12 PM