How memes are orchestrated by companies for profit (Harlem Shake made it to mefi on Feb 7, eight days after its origin. Another related post.)
posted by desjardins on Mar 28, 2013 - 109 comments

This YouTube video seems to break my browser. Does it play alright for anyone else?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 6, 2009 - 45 comments

Brazil-based agency DDB BRASIL, contracted by the WWF to make an ad which would drive a "Respect the Planet" theme home, thought that making a 9/11 themed ad would be a good idea. After the video somehow makes it to the internet (some say it was leaked by the agency itself to win an award at Cannes), outrage predictably ensues. DDB Brasil insists the commercial was nothing but a rough draft and the WWF has not endorsed the ad made in their name, although evidence exists suggesting WWF Brazil endorsed a similar print ad a while back. Stupid, bad ad and a comedy of errors? Or the latest viral ad strategy?
posted by Effigy2000 on Sep 3, 2009 - 55 comments

Is Your Soul Weighing You Down? Store It! Or, if you're tired of your own soul, try a new one on for size! Er... uh oh. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 10, 2009 - 37 comments

The creators of the subservient chicken look back on how it all came to be. As seen on MetaFilter 5 years ago today.
posted by billyfleetwood on Apr 7, 2009 - 33 comments

Hey Meta,

Just saw a news report that you were on. Cool! Here is the link.

Best,

gnfti
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 11, 2008 - 62 comments

Coudal Partners is a Web / Media / Design studio in Chicago on which the following popped up: Steve Delahoyde's Regrets. Clicking through there were five others which are equally as funny as they are depressing: Boxes, Hobbies (regrets), Racism, Spoons, Kids.
posted by lonemantis on Sep 4, 2007 - 24 comments

Camp Okutta: give your child a summer to remember!
posted by generichuman on Aug 22, 2007 - 35 comments

The most cruel viral ad campaign yet. Give your friend the experience of being stalked by a serial killer. Make sure to preview the very slick customized video generated first, before you decide whether you really want to do this to someone you like. [Yes, yes, viral advertising for some FX show, also Flash]
posted by blahblahblah on Aug 14, 2007 - 38 comments

I pooted. Enigmatic billboard advertisements, apparently promoting a Cartoon Network show, Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends seen in several major cities.
posted by ijoshua on Jun 22, 2006 - 54 comments

Buy an ad, and Aric posts a funny photo of himself and your product. Another entry in the "million dollar homepage" series of viral-advertising-as-content sites. [via mefi projects]
posted by brownpau on Feb 18, 2006 - 21 comments

Won't somebody please think of the children? Oh, don't fool yourselves! Americans under the age of 12 now spend or influence the spending of $565 billion a year - up from $2.2 billion in 1968, and kid-spending has roughly doubled every ten years for the past three decades, tripling in the 1990s. Which means someone is always thinking of the children. The American Association of Pediatrics (pdf) cites this bludgeoning of kidvertising as creating in children "a fever for shopping and spending, swollen expectations about material needs, decreasing immunity to the assaults of advertisers, self-concepts defined by brands of clothing, and a rash of of debt by the time they leave college". [more...]
posted by taz on Sep 19, 2005 - 55 comments

"I just read about CNN Headline News in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." --Thoth
posted by jca on Apr 25, 2005 - 42 comments

Remember this? It has won recognition as "Best Interactive Viral" in the Viral Awards. With all the viral¹ and stealth² marketing campaigns, comment spam, astroturfing³, and other tools that marketeers are using to infiltrate the Brave New(ish) World of blog, we sometimes forget that we also have the power to do good, so "you know, like, reclaim the streets, or re-frame the conversation, or some damn thing". Words of wisdom from our not-so-subservient chicken. [and, a bit more...]
posted by taz on Mar 26, 2005 - 20 comments

Not only is pop star Ashlee Simpson lip syncing and manufactured, but so are some of her fans:
"I just read about Ashlee in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." -- mandyc19

Welcome to the world of message forum viral marketing, "street team" advertising, and corporate shills. That "fan" posting in forums about Court TV, The Smoking Gun, or shows on Fox isn't a fan at all -- just another type of spammer -- only this time employed by giant media corporations.
posted by jca on Jan 25, 2005 - 85 comments

Inferno Cargo, subsidiary of Sable + Shuck. Advertising interests me, but if it doesn't you, this will waste your time.
posted by nthdegx on Sep 28, 2004 - 4 comments

Heads are Gonna Roll • Ford Motor Co. is pissed at ad agency Ogilvy & Mather after O&M leaked a viral marketing ad for the Ford Sportka depicting "a realistic-looking orange cat climbing on top of the car and curiously poking its head into the open moon roof...The roof slides closed and the cat struggles briefly to escape before its headless body slides to the ground." Apparently Ford never authorized the commercial's (.mpg) release.
posted by dhoyt on May 2, 2004 - 33 comments

Subservient chicken - modern advertising...
posted by mildred-pitt on Apr 7, 2004 - 92 comments

Hey, it's a clever flash game ... umm ... something's off here. Never a sucker for banner ads, I click on an ad from Yahoo for some type of "advertising trivia" game. Cool enough, but it seems all of the questions are about laundry products, P&G laundry products. The capper came when the started streaming a Tide ad as part of the "game." So naturally, the whois is some entity in Cincinnati.

Jeez, do I feel like a simp.
posted by foist on Dec 12, 2001 - 8 comments

Underground marketing shills "put it in your life". Big Fat co. sends 18-34yr olds into the world to act out ad dramas promoting products. "I feel so great, so real." (I'm not sure what the writer means by "facially attractive, in that asymmetrical sort of way," though.)[via null device, NYT reg. req.]

Ten-day Ubik deodorant spray or Ubik roll-on ends worry of offending, brings you back where the happening is.
posted by aflakete on Jul 16, 2001 - 12 comments

Kathicam.com is fake! [NYTimes, free reg. req.] A new twist in advertising online? ESPN.com has created a fake website called kathicam.com, put up a blinding pink background and created a character who writes poetry, has a webcam, is sorta attractive, and hates ESPN.com. Each page of "kathi's" site has a prominent link to ESPN.com, and they've gotten a ton of click-through traffic. Inspired? Insipid?
posted by acridrabbit on Feb 28, 2001 - 38 comments

The next wave in Internet Advertising in the post Blair-Witch era.
posted by chaz on May 12, 2000 - 12 comments