Viral marketing & RATM defeat Simon Cowell & Co.

"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" does lead singer in Rage Against the Machine, Zac de la Rocha, sing. This fits perfectly with the viral stunt going on this past weekend, where the American youth showed their discontent with pop culture. In short, did over 300.000 people, facilitated through Twitter and Facebook gathered and bought the (awesome!!) Rage-song "Killing in the name of", which resulted in this old song passing tons of X-Factor-artists up for the christmas-sale.

Read NME's funny and critical perspective on this subject matter HERE, or watch the RAGE- or the X-factor video hereunder - it's kinda' different ;-)

Best (Christmas) wishes Bjarke Petersen

Improvs make my day - feat. "I Love Lunch - The Musical" & "Where's Rob"

Somewhere between theatre, flashmobs and guerrilla- and viral marketing you find improvs. These two videos by Improv Everywhere is great examples of how a good idea can turn into a real Youtube monster-hit. One could argue that it doesn't really serve any purpose, but on the other hand - its great fun :-D

All the best - Bjarke P

VIRAL MARKETING GONE WRONG... Ford Mustang's attempt at making viral marketing video

Ford is about to reveal its latest Mustang 2010 model, which is celebrated by the making of the video with the not really enticing title: "2010 Ford Mustang vs. professional skateboarders".

It seems as if they had great expectations and thoughts about the film, but didn't really had IT.

First of all - Ford Mustang is sponsoring skateboarders!! ? - I think Ford's attempt to attach oneself to the skateboarding culture has failed miserably and is in no way credible.

Why not attach oneself to all american cultures/subcultures such as Nascar, Football or just plain ROCK N' ROLL?

Second big corporate communication failiure is the disclaimer/warning in the beginning:

"This video shows both computer-generated and actual driving sequences (...) Computer-generated scenes do not depict actual driving and are pure fantasy"...

The above comments on computer graphics and pure-fantasy-driving-experiences are in my eyes SO uncool and so NOT Ford Mustangs, prancing horses, freedom and being the all-American Lone Rider...!

Lastly, when watching the below BMW M5-video, one can only laugh about Ford Mustang viral marketing-campaign. This add is directed by Guy Ritchie and features Clive Owen and Madonne - and in connection with this, taking brand attachment into consideration, it seems a bit more thought through ;)


All the best - Bjarke Petersen