Introduction to Media Writing, Maryville University

Welcome to the course blog for the Spring 2009 edition of Introduction to Media Writing.  Here is a link to your course wiki page.  Remember that you need to log in to post to either the wiki or the blog!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Viral Marketing Examples

Deb Shearer


All of these came from my own e-mail inbox of items I have received from others.


Honda video – really cool! 2 minutes. The text that accompanied the e-mail I received for this said the following, "There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it..

The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn't work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect.

The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives. However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet.

Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it) When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs. There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording.

Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation. By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.




Winter Sucks! This is a British (I think) ad but the logo and tag line appears very briefly at the very end.



Some people may find this ad a bit offensive but it is very typical of British humor and advertising.



Rough Morning - for IBC Rootbeer - there are several other similar ads for European beers. It seems that the British and European advertisers have grasped onto the viral commercial more quickly than the US market.

Gatorade Ball Girl Catch Watch to see if you can spot Gatorade in the video clip.

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