If I’m reading the New York Times right, viral videos are no longer cool. They’ve been adopted by one marketer after another, and now they’ve even caught on in Cincinnati.
For decades, the Procter & Gamble Company was perhaps the most staid and traditional national advertiser, rarely approving advertising that deviated from tried-and-true formulas. Now, as Procter begins exploring the wild world of so-called viral or word-of-mouth marketing, seeking to reach younger consumers who live online, eyebrows are being raised all over cyberspace.
For the last two months, Procter has been distributing a viral video clip for Folgers coffee, which can be watched on Web sites like adcritic.com, boardsmag.com, buzzpatrol.com and youtube.com. The clip presents a daffily skewed take on conventional coffee commercials, featuring a horde of impossibly cheerful people rampaging through a town.
The youth-oriented effort has its own Web site (toleratemornings.com), where the clip resides with wake-up calls, mock e-mail messages and a make-believe “boss tracker.”
