Radar's Viral strain top ten, really strains itself to include fake ads in their lineup

Radar online has an article called: VIRAL STRAIN 2008 is shaping up to be a bad year for guerrilla advertising and even that headline bothers me. Viral and Guerilla is not even close the same thing, leave it to the ad-amateurs to get these two confused. Then the article starts with "2007 was the year when so-called "guerrilla advertising," or "viral marketing," made its national debut. " Oh puh-lease, was the writer born in 2007? Neither guerilla advertising nor viral advertising is that young, the first exposed viral campaign here is from 2000, though offline virals have been created since 1987 (for Apple mac - look it up), and guerilla advertising goes way back to the days when I was still preoccupied with learning how to walk. That's a long time ago, folks.

Number ten on their list of "crappiest viral advertising campaigns in 2008 thus far" is... Guinness good times! Yes, the fake "Orgy" advert, or should I call it "user generated"? Either way that ad is so fake fake fake that Diageo has demanded that the group sex Guinness viral should be pulled from YouTube - but as usual, users fight back and that video will never die as fans of it keep posting hundreds of copies (ignoring that useless youtube TOS - here's a tip youtube enforce your terms of service or forget about having any kthxbye).

I knew that this day would come, when ads, fake ads, and stealthy virals muddled the water so much we no longer know which is which. I even said so in Viral marketings worst nightmare - Hoaxes back in feb 2005 - related is Justin's rant The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders debate in December 2004. What is a brand to do when the brand is clearly owned by the consumer and not themselves these days? Will our jobs as advertisers switch over to pure PR, the panic kind that puts out fires from bad user generated ads and pushes the good ones further? I feel like screaming "kids, get off my lawn!". Brands are usergenerated, and if you think about it - they always were. Advertisers have only ever played with an illusion of control over a brand - like surfers on waves, it's the ocean that calls the shots not you. The sooner brands wise up to this, the better. You'll still need one mean surfer to manage to stay afloat in rough waves. Call us.



There's also a healthy discussion going on at the post abot the Fake Scion adverts: Spec work going around the web as real ads - is there any way to stop that? Should we even try?. If you fancy search fake viral and you'll have plenty of reading from fake virals past.
Adland® is supported by your donations alone. You can help us out by buying us a Ko-Fi coffee.
Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
comment_node_story
Files must be less than 1 MB.
Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png wav avi mpeg mpg mov rm flv wmv 3gp mp4 m4v.
Dabitch's picture

Hello HILARIOUS. Stacy on adlist just nudged me, since I asked how old the writer is - looks like he's an intern. Check his linkedin profile. "Editorial Intern at Radar Magazine" - Omg, just a baby. gasp! I'm so old - ättestupan nästa som man säger i Sverige.

Neaner's picture

Still, how hard can it be to do a little research? A college-kid should be able to handle that.

WTF is "ättestupa"?

TDD's picture

And handle writing an article more than three short paragraphs in length. I'm surprised he didn't use the word "unprecedented" in his article. And I don't like the name of the magazine either.

Dabitch's picture

Ättestupa is the cliff that old people throw themselves off to avoid becoming a (food) burden on their children. I don't know what it says about Swedish mentality that we actually have a word for that!
Ätt = bloodline/family + stup = cliff

purplesimon's picture

We have a similar word in the UK for OAPs that don't live to avoid becoming a burden, it's called hypothermia.

However, not sure they choose to die as they do in your Swedish-land.

Allan1's picture

The Inuits (Eskimos) [used to] put the elderly on broken pieces of ice flow, and let them float away.

RLDavies's picture

All Inuit are Eskimos, but not all Eskimos are Inuit. There are several Eskimo peoples who are fed up to the back teeth with well-meaning PC types calling them Inuit.

TDD's picture

I'm not sure "Inuit" is a P.C. term.

For many centuries, outsiders called Inuit “Eskimos.” Inuit no longer find this term acceptable. They prefer the name by which they have always known themselves – Inuit, which means “the people” in their own language, Inuktitut.

Source: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/info/info114_e.html

But you might be correct.

RLDavies's picture

"Inuit" isn't a PC term in itself -- it's the name of a people -- but the indiscriminate use of it to mean "any Arctic native" is PC.

"Inuit" covers several peoples: the Inuit and Inuvialut (Canada), the Inupiat (northern Alaska), and the Kalaallit (Greenland), who share common ancestry and similar cultures and languages.

Also living in the Arctic are the Yupik peoples, who live in central Alaska and Siberia.They have different ancestry, cultures, and languages, and would be offended to be misidentified as Inuit.

"Eskimo" is generally accepted as a blanket term for both Iniut and Yupik peoples, as no other word exists. Contrary to popular belief, it is not inherently pejorative; it derives from a word for either "people who string nets on snowshoes" or "people who speak another language" (not "eaters of raw meat", as the myth would have it).

Wikipedia has a good article here.

Dabitch's picture

Now I have to tell the most politically incorrect pun in the world. At a party in my house, a guy from the UK and a gal from Greenland share the couch and talk over drinks. She explains that she's a designer, fur especially and she prefers most other furs but uses sealskin because when in Denmark she can get all sorts of grants that help in that regard since she is Greenlandian and seal fur would be the traditional culture to support. UK guy replies: So, you're inuit for the money then?

alex's picture

*the sound of jaw dropping*

RLDavies's picture

* snerk * Glad I put my coffee mug down first!