A Marketer’s Worst Viral-Video Nightmare. Poor Dove.
Let’s say you’re the interactive marketer for Dove. You finally sold your management on the concept of inviting people to make ads for a contest viral video! They said they were afraid of what people may enter. But you said, “don’t worry… if it’s not appropriate we won’t feature it.”
And then this video ends up on YouTube. Ouch. Warning: obscenity and contagious melody. Courtesy of GraniteBaySoftware’s blog.
What do you do? You laugh, and then realize your career at Dove is over.
What makes this such a cringer is that it’s not your typical “this product sucks” spoof commercial. It actually appears to be trying to promote Dove, and then just gets more and more outrageous… until the culmination “you asked for it” line.
And it’s like a car accident. You don’t want to look but you must.
The craptacular guitar playing is what makes the video.
Why the marketing guy should not lose his job.
– This guys video will get what maybe 7,000 views.
– The make your own ad contest that will have had more that 7000 people entering positive things; all of their friends and family involved in knowing they entered, and lots more actually looking at the finalist ads. The PR machine will also pimp the story of the winner and hundreds and thousands more will hear about it. So those 300,000 + folks will all have a positive brand association
Thus 293,000 positive experiences; not all that bad.
A great example of what the new breed of amateur video makers think of traditional advertising. I agree with Jack, though, this probably won’t make much of a dent in the overall contest. Oh, and I wonder, is it wrong that I found it as amusing as I did? It makes me see the “I’m every woman” campaign in a whole new light.
Hahaha! That video was fun! Made me homesick for the veterans homeless shelter I used to live in. He looked like one of my benchmates at the shelter named Dirty Dick, a biker gang veteran with a heart of gold. This video would sell Dove to the vagabonds and roustabouts who live there if it wasn’t given to us free. I don’t see it as all that threatening.
This guy has star power! As part of the artsy fartsy crowd this appeals to me. I am thinking of starting a campaign so he gets enough hits to be featured on yourtube just in time for the Superbowl. Course that might be counter productive since, as they say, there’s no such thing as bad PR.
If Dove wants to sell its cleansing products to the great unwashed masses, it’s going to have to get down and dirty a little bit. Example:
Red Foxx (before he became whitebread mainstream) used to put out blue comedy albulms. One was entitled “Wash Your Ass” (no kidding, you can check this out). That albulm probably sold more soap for Dove than all their billboards on the east side.
I wish more people would do that too.
he sure looks smooth-skinned.
lol