Scroll to the bottom for 2 of the videos: “Hairbath” and “Pete the Meat Puppet.”
JustLuxe.com says: Diesel has launched a new viral ad campaign.
The Daily Anchor says: No, no it didn’t.
You can launch a campaign and it can go viral, but you cannot “launch a viral campaign.” You can create a viral-esque campaign that’s hilarious/edgy/mysterious/adorable with the hope that it goes viral, but a campaign doesn’t go viral until, well, until it goes viral.
“Viral” is one of those nauseating marketing catch-phrases like “web 2.0″ and now “sales 2.0″ (ugh) that once had significant meaning but has since been abused to the point of meaninglessness. For the sake of this post, though, and On Behalf of the Integrity of All Marketers and Advertisers, let’s agree that a “viral” ad campaign means that even if you haven’t seen the ad first-person, you’ve heard about it from multiple independent sources, and I don’t mean your colleagues in the marketing department.
Remember the JCPenney Doghouse commercial that aired before Christmas? My girlfriend’s mom emailed that to me, one of my friends from Connecticut told me about it, I saw it embedded on 10+ of my favorite marketing blogs, and it received around 2.5 million views according to Viral Video Chart, with 1.5 million views on YouTube alone. THAT’s going viral.
The Diesel campaign? As of Jan 31st Viral Video Chart hadn’t picked up any of the 7 videos, YouTube is reporting a wopping 10,000 views for “hairbath” and 80,000 for “Pete the Meat Puppet.”
In fact, as of today JustLuxe is the only place on the internet at which I can find ANY mention of Diesel having a viral campaign in 2009 (Diesel’s SFW 80′s porn campaign went legitimately viral in Sept. 2008.) Go ahead, Google “Diesel viral campaign 2009″ and tell me what you find. Then Google “Diesel video” and see if anything from 2009 even appears. Now, granted, it’s January 31st, 2009, and if you Google these terms in 2 months you might indeed find the videos, but as of today no Diesel campaign has “gone viral” in 2009.
One of the videos, “Hairbath,” shows not a single article of clothing, just a nude girl in a bathtub of hair… I get that Diesel is trying to go viral, but what does this have to do with fashion? Is Diesel telling us to take hair baths? To glue hair to our clothes? To… to… do what? Certainly anything but buy their clothes. Here are 4 stills from the videos, followed by 2 of the videos:
You may have heard the saying “if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” well I want to know, “if a company says it launches a viral campaign and it doesn’t go viral and barely features any of the company’s products and leaves people scratching their heads and very sketched out, does anybody get laid off?”
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I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about. Halfway through Pete the Meat Puppet, my right arm unconsciously took control of my mouse, navigated to Diesel’s online store, and purchased several thousand dollars worth of pre-worn vintage jeans circa 1822…3 pairs actually, on my Visa card. When I came to, I was consumed with self loathing and nausea. That was probably due to the texture of Pete’s face. If by viral they mean sickens upon viewing, they succeeded admirably.
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