Viral Marketing Campaigns flops

Mike Gravel: 'Rock'
 A 78-year-old former senator from Alaska running for president





Cheetos Orange Underground

The Orange Underground site features a deliberately scratchy video urging viewers to commit Random Acts of Cheetos (RAoC). "Coat your fingers with Cheetos and leave your mark. On someone's back. Someone's desk. Wherever you like." It encouraged visitors to fill people's shoes with Cheetos, crush them inside someone's laptop, or toss them into the dryer with someone else's laundry--and then post videos of their dirty deeds online.
The brand set up a blog & created a YouTube channel











Coors Code Blue

Coors's online adventures started with a beer commercial built around its new temperature-activated bottles. When the mountains on the Coors label changed color, excited Coors fans in the ad send "Code Blue" text messages to each other, indicating it's time for a cold one. The idea looked so cool on the commercials that Coors wanted people to do it in real life, until the company discovered that "text-messaging elaborate 'Code blue' alerts as shown in the commercial using mobile devices would not currently be technologically feasible" ( according to the New York Times).


Instead, Coors poured money into the Web, creating Facebook andMySpace pages that allowed Coors fans to send "Code Blue" alerts to their pals. Apparently, Coors has never heard of Twitter.
Cold? Maybe. Cool? Not a chance.


Naming the campaign after the term used for hospital patients going into cardiac arrest. Maybe Coors should have included a free defibrillator with every six-pack.








 Sony 'All I Want for Xmas Is a PSP'

All Sony wanted for Christmas in 2006 was to create a little buzz for its handheld gaming platform. So its marketing company created a fake blog called "All I Want for Xmas Is a PSP," allegedly written by a teen named Charlie who's trying to get the parents of his pal Jeremy to pony up for a PSP. Bloggers who smelled a rat looked up the site's domain and found that it was registered to guerrilla marketing company Zipatoni (now called Rivet). The reaction was swift and brutal, and the site disappeared shortly thereafter.
How bad was the blog? To wit: "we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j's parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!"
It gets worse. Along with badly executed teen patois came a video ofCharlie's cousin Pete rapping about why he too wants a PSP (when what he really needs is a job and maybe some hair plugs)












eBay 'Windorphins'

No, they're not anti-depressants. eBay's marketing geniuses dreamed up some blobby little cartoon characters to promote the site and the "endorphin" rush you get when you "win" an eBay auction ("win-dorphin," get it?).
Per the original press release of July 2007:
"We've all experienced that feeling you can only get on eBay--you know, the excited rush you get when you win that item you really wanted at a great price? ... Well, we've had a scientific breakthrough! According to our official scientists--after a lot of arduous, painstaking research--it can be linked to aphenomenon called 'Windorphins.'"
eBay set up a Web site where you could create your own Windorphins, and spent millions on billboards, magazine ads, and TV spots promoting them. One billboard ad proclaimed, "Windorphins are like a ticker tape parade for your soul." A more accurate description came from the blogger who called them "happy, animated hemorrhoids." eBay quietly dropped the campaign a few months later in favor of one titled "Shop Victoriously." Ugh. As for the Windorphins: Now they're just plain orphans.










Wal-Marting Across America

They were Jim and Laura, two average Americans who hit the road in their RV , parking overnight at Wal-Marts around the country and blogging about the fine folks they met along the way. 
But the relentlessly upbeat entries about how everyone just loved working for Wal-Mart set off alarms in the blogosphere, and before long the blog was exposed as a fake. Though Jim and Laura were real, the trip was paid for by Wal-Mart and engineered by its PR firm, Edelman. Once people connected the dots, the blogosphere erupted, splattering both Wal-Mart and Edelman with mud and spawning yet another Web 2.0 neologism--the "flog," or fake blog.
Edelman, which helped write the ethics guidelines for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association but apparently forgot to read them, later admitted to creating two more flogs for Wal-Mart.




Jawbone Films

Foul-mouthed racists, homicidal laundry employees, a shark-infested swimming pool, mauled teenagers, and Russian mobsters drowned in their own borscht. The latest Tarantino/Rodriguez gorefest? No, it's a collection of viral videos created to promote Aliph's Jawbone Bluetooth headsets. The idea: Despite what's going on around you (murder, mayhem, sloppy kissing between male rugby players), you can drown it all out using the Jawbone's new "NoiseAssassin" technology. Nice.
In the worst of the four videos, a racist jerk enters a Chinese laundry, insults everyone, and gets smothered with a dry-cleaning bag and beaten to death by the employees--while an oblivious bystander enjoys a crystal-clear cell call.
"I don't have virgin ears and I've dropped an f-bomb or two in my life," notes Patrick Byers, CEO ofOutsource Marketing and purveyor of The Responsible Marketing Blog. "But this video is incredibly insensitive, offensive and violent. The Jawbone brand is creating buzz all on its own. They didn't need to resort to exploitative or offensive virals."


Aqua Teen Hunger Force and 'The Bomb'

How do you promote a cartoon starring anthropomorphic versions of fast food? The creators behind the Adult Swim show Aqua Teen Hunger Force thought it would be a neat idea to attach hundreds of small billboards styled like Lite-Brite glowing toys to buildings, bridges, and underpasses in cities across the country. But when the Boston police mistook the battery-operated signs for terrorist bombs in January 2007, all hell broke loose. The city shut down highways and parts of the Charles River for several hours. The masterminds behind the signs, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, were arrested, and Turner Broadcasting System had to pay $2 million to clean up the mess. (Berdovsky and Stevens were eventually sentenced to community service.)
But this viral-marketing disaster may have actually helped the show's image, says Barak Kassar, group creative director of full-service marketing firm Rassak Experience.
"Adult Swim's young male audience relish anti-establishment cartoons and likely relished the news footage (which they probably watched on YouTube) of the 'busted' yet unrepentant gonzo marketers who were contracted by the network," says Kassar.
Of the dozen major cities where the signs were placed, only Beantown mistook a marketing gimmick for a terrorist plot. But after all, said Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley, "It had a very sinister appearance. It had a battery behind it, and wires."


Microsoft Vista's 'Wow'

It was a marriage made in marketing hell: a lame product with an even worse catchphrase. Yet "The Wow starts now" was only the beginning of Microsoft's desperate effort to drum up enthusiasm for Vista, its years-late-and-many-dollars-short operating system.
The campaign hit rock bottom with the Web site that Microsoft created for Vista fans to display their "Wow" moments. By having users upload photos and video clips to ShowUsYourWow.com, Microsoft hoped to show off Vista's nifty Aero interface. Unfortunately, Aero was too processor-intensive to run on many machines, leading to a class action lawsuit over the "Vista Capable" stickers used to promote the OS on underpowered systems.
"In 1994 we represented CompuServe, which had a product called 'Wow' with a slogan 'Bring the Wow into your life,'" notes Richard Laermer, principal of RLM PR and author of 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade. "Twelve years later, Microsoft's doing it. Using 'Wow' is like sleeping on the job. Whoever came up with that campaign for Microsoft should be shot."
Our favorite ShowUs moment: a video of Claudio, a bone-thin topless transvestite in a blonde wig, shaking his booty and lip-syncing to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." Wow

Wispa Gold Bar::: For the love of Wispa

We’ve decided to give our advertising space to you guys as a thank you for all the love you’ve shown to Wispa. We've bought thousands of billboards all over the UK and Ireland so that you can share your special messages with the world. Yes that’s right, you let us know your special message and if it gets selected we will post it on a real billboard in the location of your choice.So whether you just want to say 'hi' to a special friend who lives in a different city, or wish your Mum Happy 60th Birthday, now is your chance. All you have to do is submit your special ‘gold’ standard message along with an explanation of why it is so special, and let us know which city you would like your billboard to appear in. We will do the rest.So what are you waiting for? Make sure you submit your message by 3rd October 2009 to be in with a chance of winning.

Site: http://www.wispagoldmessages.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wispa?v=wall

YTube Channel:http://www.youtube.com/fortheloveofwispa

Visit Denmark Tourist Board:::a Danish woman looking for he baby's daddy

A viral stunt for Visit Denmark Tourist Board.



This is a viral stunt made by Visit Denmark. However, cleverly crafted it has caused a rhetorical battle between journalists and marketing people concerning the right interpretation of the video. Is this way of branding unfair as its based on lying in order to make people aware on Denmark, or is it a success story due to the explosive amount of viewings it has received in a very short time?

A Youtube video purporting to represent a pretty young Danish single mother looking for the foreign father of her son, may have garnered Denmarks national tourist agency VisitDenmark some 800,000 clicks but the story behind the video is a lie.

According to confirmed reports, the national tourist agency VisitDenmark generated the story of a one night stand with a foreign man producing a son, to get more people to visit the home of Shakespeare's 'To be or not to be'.

The video, however, is definitely 'Not to be' the young woman in the video is a Danish actress and the baby is not hers.

I dont understand the advertising agency that has produced this story. What do they think people will think, says Roskilde University Sociologist and Womens Affairs Researcher Karen Sjørup.

Theyre obviously trying to sell a type of promiscuous Danish woman and exploit the idea that you can lure quick, blonde Danish women home without a condom, Sjørup says, adding however that foreigners who come to Denmark with that idea will be very disappointed.

Broad-minded
VisitDenmark disagrees.

Karens story shows that Denmark is a broad-minded country where you can do what you want. The film is a good example of independent, dignified, Danish women who dare to make their own choices, says VisitDenmark CEO Dorte Kiilerich.

Why have you chosen to market Denmark as a country with drunken women who have unsafe sex with casual acquaintances?

That is not a story that I recognise. We tell a good and sweet story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibilty of her actions. And she uses a modern social medium, Kiilerich says.

Ad agency
The Grey advertising agency that produced the video says it is a major success.

It is the most successful viral advert ever. We have got through the media noise and it cost the same as a 30-second spot shown a couple of times on TV2, says Peter Helstrup from Greys.

Since last Thursday, the video has notched up 1.9 million Google searches, 773,000 YouTube viewings and is linked to 83,000 websites.

No reproach
In the video, the young woman, claiming to be called Karen says: I dont reproach you, but I think you should know that (a young boy called) August is here.

Karen, however, is the actress Ditte Arnth Jørgsensen, the baby is not hers, and the viral advert was produced using taxpayers money.

The fabricated story behind the video is that the young woman met a tourist by chance in the Nyhavn area of Copenhagen, introduced him to the Danish concept of hygge or cosiness. The next morning his side of the bed was empty when she woke up, and nine months later the now one-and-a-half-year-old August appeared on the scene.

Johannesburg::: Luv Jozi fake campaign

Word of mouth marketing works!

Brand 'Love Jozi' (after the nickname for Johannesburg) created a range of iconic t-shirts with the idea of getting people to think differently about South Africa's ...and to make the range go beyond the minority that shop in designer clothes stores, they created their own cheap Chinese style fakes that they called 'Luv Jozi', the name obviously being a nod to the ridiculous rip-offs you sometimes see along the lines of 'Kelvin Klein' and the like.

They sold the cheap stuff at flea markets and 'robots' (traffic light junctions) - at a third of the price of the original stuff - and built a fake website. Love Jozi designer Bradley Kirshenbaum intends to do exactly that, creating a range of "cheaper and more accessible Love Jozi products."

Amazingly, Love Jozi actually kept up the sideline business in cheap rip-offs for two years.

Website:http://www.lovejozi.co.za

Blog: http://www.thelovejoziblog.co.za/

Case study vedio:

What's Going Viral? Thrilling Stunts and Hidden-Camera Pranks

What People Watched the Week of Aug. 17

by Abbey Klaassen Published: August 27, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- As they have for the past several weeks, Evian with its roller-skating babies and Microsoft with its gigantic waterslide continue to battle it out for the No. 1 spot on the Viral Video Chart. Both campaigns have started to lose momentum, but they both racked up enough views in the past week to give them more than double the next-closest video, which happens to also be a Microsoft one (the Project Natal trailer, which has lingered on the chart since its debut at E3 in early June).

A terrifying -- and thrilling -- five-minute video of stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill jumping fences and off of roofs in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the week's fourth-most-watched piece. The video, which actually launched in April and has since racked up almost 10 million views, has received a bit of attention of late, including in Ad Age, helping to boost it onto the chart. It's lightly branded by Inspired Bicycles -- so lightly, in fact, that Visible Measures, which collects and analyzes the data we show here, just recently classified it as "branded" -- a prerequisite for making this chart.

Meanwhile, Office Max reprised its "Penny Pranks" campaign, in which it records, via hidden cameras, the reactions of sellers when its actors try to pay for high-ticket items in pennies. The company launched the campaign last year with comedian Matt McCarthy doing the buying; this year he's joined by a 10-year-old "billionaire sidekick." The push, which also includes TV and radio, is meant to promote the office-supply chain's 1-cent deals on supplies such as rulers, crayons and notebooks.

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**	Watch the Spot
1	2	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	1,401,890	-25%
2	1	Microsoft	Megawoosh (Make It Possible)	MRM Worldwide, Germany	1,162,745	-49%
3	5	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous	467,645	+6%
4	New	Inspired Bicycles	Danny MacAskill Trials	N/A	450,065	New
5	3	MSI	Acrobuttocks	N/A	448,331	-64%
6	Back on Chart	Frito-Lay	Woman's World	OMD, Juniper Park, Jam Media	424,747	Back on Chart
7	New	Office Max	Back to School for Pennies	The Escape Pod	381,131	New
8	6	DC	Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project	Mad Media	366,189	-7%
9	7	Nike SB	Today Was a Good Day	Wieden & Kennedy	274,227	-28%
10	9	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	190,285	-5%
Source: Visible Measures *The Visible Measures Top 10 Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart focuses on brand-driven viral video ads that appear on online-video-sharing destinations. Each campaign is measured on a True Reach™ basis, which includes viewership of both brand-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations. Note: This analysis does not include Visible Measures' paid-placement (i.e., overlays, pre-/mid-/post-roll) performance data or video views on private sites. This chart does not include movie trailers, video-game campaigns, TV show or media network promotions, or public service announcements. View-count results are incremental by week. **Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before. To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact Visible Measures directly.

Red Bull Cola | MI6 viral

Water slide virals

Microsoft

BMW

http://jalopnik.com/375935/exclusive-the-ramp-a-documentary-by-jeff-schultz

Flynn's Arcade Exists? New Viral Game for Tron? Updated!

Wow something strange is going on out there. I woke up this morning to find a FedEx package from some address listed in San Diego called PMB. Inside the envelope were two arcade tokens (see above) for the once thought to be mythical Flynn's Arcade. Yep, the very same Flynn's that is the "Home of Tron" from the movie, uh, Tron. If I can put two-and-two together, a San Diego location this week might mean that Disney is doing a little Tron 2 viral marketing at Comic-Con. Sounds good to me! In addition to the tokens, there was also a thumb drive with an image labeled "4.gif" that is a coded animated gif. Check that out below.

So after doing some snooping around on the web, I also found out that JoBlo has an image like this as well, but with some different code (not the same stuff above). Some of the code in my image is gibberish - stuff I can't even understand. But on the JoBlo one they actually have some standard HTML code and numbers and so on. As I said, something very strange is going on. This viral is really starting to kick off and I hope we can figure this out before Comic-Con starts up. We'll keep you updated on the progress. It looks like we might have to put a bunch of pieces together and decipher the code? If anyone can help, let us know! Stay tuned!

Update: So far I've found the following other viral pieces across the web. From the comments below, we have gif #1, JoBlo has #3, UGO and SlashFilm have #2, I have #4, so we're still missing #5 maybe? Here are those four put together below (pattern goes 1,2,3,4). See anything? I can't make any sense of this code yet?

Update #2: Over on MacHeist they deciphered the HTML code from the four gifs above as well as a fifth one from IGN. When the HTML is put together it creates a web page with a table in the middle containing letters and numbers to decipher the message below. When deciphered, it spells out "Flynn Lives." Awesome - but that can't just be it, can it? There might be more - something related to a countdown or location details at Comic-Con? Keep searching - and there might be some websites related to this as well. Have we tried flynnlives.com? Keep up to date in the comments. We'll let you know when hear more!

Update #3: Flynn Lives! The website is up and running at flynnlives.com. If you click the little bouncing spider thing at the bottom of the page, a countdown timer pops up (as seen above). We're guessing this counts down to the big event happening on Thursday night in San Diego. The timer counts down to 9:30PM on Thursday, July 23rd. There is a detailing about a "Flynn Lives" movement on the website as well with article clippings about Flynn. This is really starting to get good - an awesomeARG. Definitely check out the site - there seems to be a lot of good info on there! Let us know if you find anything else?

Update #4: The last site in this update (as far as we know) until Thursday night is homeoftron.com. This URL comes from the engraving on the arcade tokens that we first received. A quick glance around the site and it provides info on Flynn's old arcade from the original Tron movie but not much more. That's all for now folks - but of course let us know what you find! There may have more secrets - be on the lookout!

Flynn's Arcade is in San Diego - Amazing Tron Legacy Viral!

July 24, 2009

While I got to see footage from James Cameron's Avatar, Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, and Tim Burton'sAlice in Wonderland today, my favorite part of the day had to be the awesome viral ARG (alternate reality game) for Tron Legacy, as it's now known (instead of just Tron 2), that I participated in tonight. We've been covering the early details but it all came together tonight in the ultimate reveal - Flynn's Arcade exists and you can even play Space Paranoids the game. And if that wasn't enough, hidden in a secret room in the back was an actual new lightcycle from the movie. But you have to hear about how we got there, first!

So it all began back during Disney's panel earlier in the day for Tron 2. Unfortunately they didn't have much new footage to reveal. They showed the test teaser trailer from last year (in 3D) and some new concept art and the designs of the new lightcycles and so on. But then they showed one odd scene from the movie "early on in it" that showed Sean Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, going back to Flynn's Arcade where it was shut down and dust covers were covering all the old arcade machines. But he finds the old Tron machine in the back, spins it out from the wall, and heads into a secret room behind it. Foreshadowing? It definitely was!

So jump ahead to 9:30PM and a huge crowd of roughly 500 people had gathered at the cul de sac located on J Street near 1st Street as was mentioned on the website FlynnLives.com. After signing a release waiver, we were given a small package that contained instructions, a handheld blacklight, a blue marker, and an extra Flynn's Arcade coin. The instructions explained that within a small area a few blocks in each direction from where we were, we had to find various "Flynn Lives" posters (as seen above) hidden on the walls and use our blacklight to find numbers. We needed to find 3 different posters and search for coordinates.

Eventually they let the masses go and off we went on a hunt for the posters. We quickly discovered (with the help of some others around us as well) that we would need to find six coordinates from three different posters (and they were very well hidden). Luckily we found all of those three posters within a block of each other and proceeded to draw out a map on a grid. That map would then pinpoint the final location (another few blocks away) which we would have to head towards to reach our final destination. We arrived not the at the front of the pack, but in the first group, and were treated to the grand opening of Flynn's Aracde.

But didn't end there! After venturing inside (and being locked inside by some very buff security guys), we proceeded to take some photos of the arcade, play some games, and walk around. A few staff kept telling us to play some Space Paranoids - the game that Flynn plays (where he fights the Recognizers from his tank) in the original Tron at the beginning. We noticed that every time you beat a level (which was remarkably hard), it would give you a unique code. We wrote this down but didn't think much of it and ultimately it wasn't used tonight - but it may have more importance sometime in the future. Again, this wasn't the end!

About 10 minutes in, the lights started to flicker and go out. All of a sudden the Tron arcade machine in the back swung open (like in the scene we were shown earlier during the panel) and revealed a secret backroom. I whipped out my iPhone and shot a short video of us entering the room behind the Tronarcade machine and walking past some badass concept art of the new lightcycles up on the wall. Watch that video below.

But the best reveal was just beyond that. Hidden in the back was a real-life fully realized blacklightcycle on a turntable - complete with trippy lighting and a sample of Daft Punk's score for the upcoming movie (which you can hear in the video). This was one hell of an awesome payoff. Not only was it great walking through the streets searching for clues on posters using blacklights, not only was it awesome stepping foot into a real life Flynn's Aracde, but then we got to see an actual lightcycle. I would love to say this thing was a working lightcycle, but of course, that isn't the case. But this thing is truly awork of art - see the video!

I've got to say - this could easily have been one of the greatest viral marketing stunts I've ever seen. You probably all heard about the joker scavenger hunt at Comic-Con a few years back - this definitely topped that one. We honestly didn't know what was happening every step of the way and it was so exciting to be a part of this. I really did get chills when I noticed that the sign above the inconspicuous building we were standing outside was a giant "Flynn's" sign. It's this kind of stuff that makes this so incredibly awesome - they know what will make fans just go crazy and they really blew our minds this time. Bravo, Disney!

We hope that there is still much more to come sometime in the near future. And we're going to see if we can find out what those codes from Space Paranoids really mean. We did end up getting a "Flynn Lives" t-shirt and poster on the way out as a bit of memorabilia. And I've heard that this might be repeated a few more times during Comic-Con if you're interested. But you'll need to check FlynnLives.com for details on that!