26 Jun Who cares if the community likes it, we went viral!
The concept of viral videos has been played to death. I’ve made it very clear that unless it increases sales or drives action they are absolutely pointless. “But Dave, they break through the clutter of a crowded marketplace!”, you might say.
Fair enough. The latest video to make the rounds is the fake minor league ball girl who scales the outfield wall a la Jackie Chan to make a spectacular catch. At first glance it appears, um, fake. At second glance – same thing. The camera angles resemble more of a movie shoot than a live broadcast (ding!), and the crystal clear up close shots don’t quite mesh with the choppy camera work in the outfield (ding!). Oh, and she looks CGI’ed up climbing the wall (ding!).
People are heralding it as a great spot because it was a product placement for Gatorade. Gatorade? Really? Did anyone notice the water bottle at her feet while she was sitting in her chair? Yeah, me either. And btw, if you want an amazing story that isn’t fake, check out this ambidextrous pitcher. Freak show! 😉
Now you might be thinking that I’m just being a Debbie Downer and not enjoying the nature of the ad. Well, I have to admit – I do have a pretty good bullshit-dar. Stunts, celebs, viral videos and other endorsements from people I don’t know really don’t drive any of my purchase decisions. I could be the exception, but I have a feeling I’m not. Unrelated, but strangely related, product review firm Buzzillions secured an additional $7MM in funding. Go figure.
Another BTW – Check out the comments under the video. They sniffed it out as a fake immediately. In fact, there are a lot of negative comments under all of the videos:
Berlitz777 (1 hour ago)
This fucking shit is fake.
333TGINN333 (1 day ago)
I’m never buying Gatorade again. I’m gutted thats not real
triswalt (2 days ago)
its a gatorade commercial
I also wonder who the first few users are to jump on and say “awsome!” and “f**k*ng amazing!!! what’s her name?! and which city is that?”. I’m not 100% but it certainly smacks of astroturfing. Because, you know, the average YouTube troll can’t spell and is afraid to swear. 😛
And to pay homage to George Parker, I’ll end with this:
Holy shit, we paid $1.5MM for this!!
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