Subliminal advertising in viral videos

I recently came across an interesting subliminal advertising related video on Youtube that got me thinking.

Watch this video and then continue reading this post as I give one possible explanation of what I think happened.

Now, most of you will be thinking that this was either a true technical error or that they had intentionally thrown it in there hoping to gain from the subliminal message in the video. I personally think that Macdonalds may have actually wanted somebody to discover this and then to spread this discussion across the web. The very act of posting this video and having this discussion is beneficial to them.

At the end of the day you have to keep in mind that all publicity is good publicity. Well, this may not necessarily be true, but any time the word gets spread around, the advertising company has gained more visibility. This is the essence of viral videos and more importantly, viral advertising.

Whether you agree or not, their mission was accomplished one way or another. The brand gained insane visibility across the web and once again, viral video advertising was a huge hit.

David Beckham vs Kevin Garnett Adidas video

One of the best “home-made” commercial videos I have ever seen is the one in which David Beckham and Kevin Garnett are having a little one-on-one competition to see who can kick a soccer ball through a basketball hoop from a free throw style distance.

In case you aren’t into sports, David Beckham is one of the most famous soccer (AKA football in Europe) players in the world and Garnett is a basketball star.

It’s a fun video that looks like it was shot by one of us and as a result makes the whole experience seem more authentic. Beckham just happens to be wearing an Adidas shirt. The genius is the authenticity of the whole thing which makes us forget that it’s actually promoting a world famous brand for a commercial purpose.

Full marks to Adidas for creating this and putting it out there.

Tools for creating videos and editing videos

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be talking about various tools that are useful in creating, editing and converting videos. Depending on your exact needs, there are different tools that cater to different requirements. For example, you may want to take a video of what’s happening on your very own computer screen or you may want to take a video of yourself speaking to the camera. These scenarios require different tools and we will be discussing each of them in detail.

So if you’re looking to create your own videos or you’d like to find out if the tools you currently use are optimal, stay tuned for our series of posts related to video creation and editing.

Numa Numa Dance Lyrics

So many of us find the Numa Numa song to be extremely catchy, but still have no clue what the actual words are. I found a video on YouTube that spells out the actual lyrics. Let me tell you - after reading the lyrics I’m even more confused than before

Read this lyrics and you’ll probably end up with the same conclusion as I reached: this song is nuts and that’s part of the appeal.

Spoiler alert and self inflicted torture

Let me start this post by saying that I am a movie buff. I love movies. They help me escape the daily grind for 90 minutes or so and they are a good way to recharge one’s batteries and clear your mind.

I happen to like a variety of different genres, but some of my favorites are “thinking movies” such as Memento and Mulholland Drive. Anybody who has watched either of these movies will agree that they take some serious brain power to figure out or rather to “try to figure out”. I found that going to IMDB and reading some of the user comments was a great way to see different opinions on what was going on in these movies. I’d often go back aftwards and rewatch the movies and see things in a different light.

If you try this approach you’ll see that many people will be kind enough to point out that their post contains “spoilers” which are essentially pieces of information that may give away parts of the story or “spoil” it for you.

If I’ve already seen the movie then I have absolutely no problem with spoilers, but if I’m just reading up about a movie ahead of time then I prefer to stay away from posts that contain “spoiler alerts”.

So I was pretty horrified to see featured today on YouTube.com a video of two guys that claim to “spoil” 100 movies in 5 minutes. Alright, so this is a pretty funny video and it made me laugh when I read this claim, but would I really be crazy enough to watch this video and have dozens of movies potentially ruined for me? I really don’t think so, but I wanted to give you the chance to decide for yourselves. Over a million people so far have agreed to risk their movie viewing future

Fake viral video marketing Ronaldinho touch of gold

Every once in a while a video crops up that makes us sit back and wonder whether it’s real or fake. A classic example of this is the Ronaldinho soccer/football crossbar challenge. The video appears to be a cheap homemade video shot by someone who happened to be filming the star doing his magic during training. I won’t get into the exact detailsof the video but when you watch it you’ll understand what the dilemma is. The genius of it was that the creators who turned out later to be Nike did not want people to know whether it was real or fake. They wanted people to wonder and as a result to send it to their friends to ask for their opinion. Those friends would in turn send it on to their friends and so on and so on. This is the genius of fake viral video marketing.

Keep in mind that the Nike branding only came later on. The original video that circulated the web did not have the Nike branding and looked exactly like any other amateur video.

Here’s the YouTube video entitled Ronaldinho Touch of Gold:

Achmed The Dead Terrorist Viral Video

Another all-time YouTube classic is the catchy ventriloquist act video performed by Jeff Dunham. This video has been watched over 83 million times to date and is still going strong. The video promotes his website on which he sells the full length DVD. I am really not sure how many of these he has sold, but even if he hasn’t sold a single copy, you have to admire the visibility and name-recognition such a video brings. All you have to do is list this on your resume and then people can hit YouTube.com to verify the incredible popularity and see your skills.

The Numa Numa video put Gary Brolsma on the map; this video put Jeff Dunham on the map. Your video could put you on the map too. Don’t give up…