Can Smart Water and Jen Aniston go viral?
March 8, 2011 at 1:17 pm | Posted in Online ads | Leave a commentTags: Glaceau, Jennifer Aniston, Smart Water, viral videos, YouTube
The marketing gimmick of the moment is viral videos. How we all wish we knew the secret, fool-proof ingredient to make those internet videos go viral, because of course, by now we should know that you can’t ‘make’ a viral video – you’re just lucky if it happens.
Glaceau Smart Water parodiesthis idea in its latest internet video. Jennifer Aniston is the star, as in the other Smart Water ads, but this time she tells the audience, “I’m here to talk to you about Smart Water. But in this day and age, I can’t just do that, can I? I have to make a video apparently that turns into a virus.” And so begins Aniston and the directors’ plight to find the key to making their video go viral. Cue lip-syncing kids, cute puppies, dancing CGI babies, a ‘double rainbow’ and even kicking a guy in the crotch (because “that should be worth about 100 000 hits.”).
However, the clincher is when Aniston drinks suggestively from a Smart Water bottle, resulting in the would-be viral video being called ‘Jen Aniston’s Sex Tape’. Seems the idea that sex sells is never far from marketers’ minds 
Interestingly, trawling through YouTube, although the video has been posted several times, it has yet to get more than a few hundred views. So, is Smart Water trying too hard? Can consumers see too clearly that this is an ad trying to be funny and go viral? After all, most viral videos like said ‘double rainbow’ was never meant to be an internet hit, which Smart Water clearly hopes its video will be.
Clever idea and certainly pertinent commentary on the ludicrousness of viral videos, but is this a hit or a miss?
Evian uses a viral campaign to boost sales
July 9, 2009 at 1:56 pm | Posted in Online ads | Leave a commentTags: ad, communication, Facebook, online, online advertising, social media, social media campaign, traditional, website, YouTube
Evian Natural Spring Water has launched a new global advertising campaign, entitled ‘Live Young’. What makes the ad particularly interesting, aside from the fact that it features roller-skating babies to project its values of health; youth; and purity in a playful way, is that Evian is hoping for a viral hit online for its launch. It is posting the ad on YouTube, and has even created a website – www.evianliveyoung.com – dedicated to the campaign, where visitors can view two videos; interviews with some of the babies filmed; and access links to Facebook pages created for the little stars (further extending the online campaign).
According to an article on YPulse, Evian has been struggling during the recession, with sales dropping significantly, especially because of its high price as a premium brand of bottled water, and needed to come up with a new, effective way of communicating with its target market.
At a time when social media and the web is such a prominent means of communicating and fostering relationships between brands and consumers, launching a campaign like this virally allows a global brand like Evian to reach consumers worldwide in a way that traditional media doesn’t have the capacity to.
Perhaps this will be an instance of targeting the desired market in the correct manner – using a fun, attention-grabbing campaign, and launching it virally in the way that the target market understands. It will be interesting to take a look at the brand’s sales figures in a few months.
View the Evian roller-skating babies by clicking here.
A snail took a walk across my reading path…
April 2, 2009 at 8:16 am | Posted in Online ads | Leave a commentTags: advertising, irritating, online, out of the box, snail, The Times, VW Polo
While reading an online article from The Times today, I encountered a most invasive form of advertising. An animated ‘snail’ suddenly popped out of the rolling static ‘VW Polo’ ad box on the right of the screen, and began inching its way across my reading path, from right to left, so it was hard to miss.
This is certainly in your face, and while I am a fan of different forms of online advertising, and this is certainly ‘out of the box’, it might prove rather irritating. The snail is elusive and you’ll need to wait until the ‘Polo’ ad shows up to accompany the article, but it’s worth the wait. What do you think?
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