So a couple of days ago a video pops up on the internet of a TV news blooper where a bird craps in a reporter’s mouth while he’s on location.
Here:
It seems pretty real up until the “money shot”, at which point the reporter’s reaction seems a little staged.
Unsurprisingly, the newly released “Behind The Scenes” video reveals that it is actually a staged viral video and not a real blooper.
So what’s the product being marketed here? Eh…
So to summarise, the original video was actually a viral of a fake news report, created to promote a viral video which promoted a fake soft drink – all of which was produced to promote a comedy website.
It’s an interesting parody on viral marketing that shows how the technique has passed its tipping point.
I remember writing an article about an Irish viral campaign not too long ago. Somewhat ignorantly of me, I didn’t explain the concept of viral marketing as well as I should have in the original draft, committing the cardinal sin of journalistic assumption. As as result someone in the office asked me to explain viral marketing in a nutshell, which I found slightly harder to do than I had expected. Something tells me if I were writing that article today such an explanation wouldn’t be nearly as necessary.