Saturday, August 05, 2006

Can ad agencies be this stupid about viral video?

I don't like to use this blog as an excuse to pick on lame ideas. But that's what I'm going to do right now.

As soon as I heard that agency.com's new viral video was 9 minutes long, I thought to myself, "only an ad agency would think someone would watch their video for 9 minutes.

Then I saw it.



Tell me, what is viral about this? It's a bad ten minute reality show.

And I mean that. It's a BAD show. It goes nowhere. There's a story, but there's no plot.

What did they do? What was their pitch? What conclusions did they come to about Subway's brand?

Other than "these agency.com kids are cooky!" what did you get about the agency from this video.

And, just like before I saw it, I'm left wondering who in the hell would want to pass along this 9 minute treasure to their friends.

There's nothing inherently viral about it.

Oh right, it's "insidery" - you get access to the brilliant creative process at agency.com. Great.


But access sells reality tv, not viral video. You're just demonstrating to your client that you have no idea how to make a video viral.

35,000 people have watched that video. I bet all of them are ad execs and new media people.

I think the unboomed one said it best...

hire better consultants, please... ones that are familiar with this space because they live in it not because they've researched living in it.


And, one more time for the cheap seats... How can an industry built on selling the 30 second ad come up with a 9 MINUTE VIRAL VIDEO!!!!

You don't watch tv for 10 minutes without breaking for commerials for god's sake! Who watches their computer screen for that long????

I hope that Subway takes Amanda's advice. But they probably won't.

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6 Comments:

Blogger Jeff Marks said...

great freakin' post!

5:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, and they weren't particularly funny people. They shoulda made a 45 second clip of something crazy with subway sandwiches. Look @ the OK, GO video on the treadmills... that's awesome. They shoulda had some subway artist expert make a crazy sandwich like bar tenders make drinks.... like tossing shit, juggling, throwing the meat onto the roll from 3 feet back... that'd be viral. stupid agency.com

2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Subway's existing online campaigns are, I think, a lot funnier:

http://www.freshivore.com
http://www.get-sa.com

And here's the whole SA! show, we did it for them:

http://www.catmanandmary.com/sa

9:55 PM  
Blogger Adam Elend said...

The OK, GO video was nice - definitely viral.

catmanandmary - liked your site a lot, you do some very cool stuff. Not viral, exactly, but funny and fresh.

8:56 AM  
Blogger T. said...

I;m not sure what the girl in the bathroom stall had to do with any of that but....thank you!

9:09 PM  
Blogger Adam Elend said...

The girl in the bathroom stall - it's reality, baby!

10:46 AM  

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