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.