The video has gone viral, leaving some to say it has changed the face of college recruitment advertising.

So, do you think they’ve nailed it for their target audience, or have they gone too far?

Comment below to weigh in.

Now, a 10 second trailer featuring Matthew Broderick has the internets abuzz wondering if a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off sequel in the works.

With over four million views in three days, the video has gone viral. Rumor has it there’s no sequel, but instead it’s teasing an ad for the new Honda CR-V. Some enraged Ferris fans are dropping f-bombs, threatening to key Hondas, and shouting “SAVE FERRIS” with all caps on.

This is a small vocal minority. I loved the movie. Saw it at least three times and can quote as many FBDO lines as anyone.

This is a tempest in a teakettle. And for all the Honda haters out there–this ad will help a whole new generation of fans will learn to appreciate “one man’s struggle to take it easy.”

That’s my take. What’s yours?

–

Update: The rumors are true. Here’s the new ad:

Inappropriately suggestive is funny when it makes sense, and is relevant to the product.

But this is Tums antacid they’re selling, not condoms or 4-hour-erection Cialis. The production values for the spots are top notch, so Grey (Worldwide) obviously spent some bucks making them. But what does phallic food and orally fixated grandmas have to do with heartburn?

Eew.

In my opinion, these spots are not funny, but creepy — and not in a good way.

What the heck was Grey thinking in creating these spots? And more importantly, how could their client, Tums/GlaxoSmithKline, have approved them? What went wrong in the process for ads like these to get made? Or could the client possibly be that naïve and blind?

- – -

Thanks to Tan Le for this guest post. Find Tan on Facebook.

Learn how they meet, and what happens if you don’t recycle.

View on YouTube in HD

We dare you to litter in our parking lot. We double-dog-dare you.

ABOUT THE VIDEOS

This is the first of at least seven Responsible Marketing web shorts from Outsource Marketing. I say “at least” because we had so much fun doing these, we’ve already begun concept development on the next round.

As we launched our new responsible brand, we decided to crush any notions that Responsible Marketing might be boring—even prudish. Even the casual reader of this blog knows better.

While there are seven videos in this series, don’t expect them to focus solely on the Seven Keys to Responsible Marketing. Our goal wasn’t to preach responsibility.

Rather, it was to have some fun with the conflict every organization faces—that battle between commerce and conscience. Between doing the right thing or doing the other thing.

To accomplish this, we’ve put two characters you’ll know well into our everyday working environment to see how they’ll fare.  Eventually we’ll cover all “Seven Keys,” but it will be subtle and not in this round.

THE RESPONSIBLE MARKETING YOUTUBE CHANNEL

The videos will be be posted weekly here on the blog and on most video sharing platforms. We’ve given special treatment to our Responsible Marketing YouTube Channel where I’ve favorited over 300 marketing videos over the last few years. Subscribe if you dig quality and/or controversial marketing vids.

While you’re there, take as moment to rate and comment on Recycling: A Love Story.

Thanks for watching, and whatever you do remember to “respect Mother Nature!”

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View video on YouTube

The nearly unbearable gritty realism of a head-on collision features heads snapping back and forth on impact, gushing blood, a child crying for its dead parents and a dead infant has created controversy, and as expected—conversation.

• The argument against: It’s simply too explicit.
• The argument for: Desensitized youth will actually pay attention.

There’s merit to both points, but seeing this video made me wonder, “If this wasn’t a PSA—if this was an ad for child seats, OnStar or another product—what would the conversation look like?”

Are we more accepting of questionable content in PSA’s because it’s for the common good and not for profit?

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Thanks to Deston Nokes and Martin Pierce for sharing this video with me last week.

You haven’t? Well, now you are in the know:

There’s a lot to like here: It’s fun, unique, the CGI was done well and who doesn’t love Rapper’s Delight? It’s the type of video you can hardly resist hitting the “share” button on and it’s really making the rounds.

Irresistable? Fun? Must be Responsible Marketing, right?

Well, yes and no.

Really, it depends on whether you think it’s possible for a company marketing a product many deem to be irresponsible can ever do Responsible Marketing.

Here are five reasons to not drink bottled water, from Lighter Footsteps and the Sierra Club:

• Bottled water isn’t a good value
• No healthier than tap water
• 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year
• Requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce
• Creates a risk to marine life
• Results in less attention to public systems

So what do you think?

Comment below to weigh in.

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But since it was, well, lumpy, and delivered via FedEx I opened it. Here’s what I found:

On one side, it says “Yes, these are real grasshoppers. They’ve even been approved by the FDA of Thailand.”

On the other side:

You’re a risk-taker, a dream-realizer. What’s left to do that you haven’t already done? Eat a grasshopper. They’re farm raised, covered in chocolate and rich in protein. So, not only will you be breaking boundaries, but you’ll be eating healthy, too.

The attached tag included the call to action:

Entrepreneurs can change the world.
Join the movement now!
www.grasshopper.com/idea

I really didn’t have the time, but I couldn’t resist jumping on this to learn what it was all about. The URL takes you to a page with the following video:

As it turns out, Grasshopper offers a nicely-packaged virtual PBX service for businesses. It’s a direct competitor to Grand Central, a similar service recently purchased by Google that’s locked down while Google integrates it into their systems.

Five things I loved about this campaign

1. The FedEx package made it feel urgent without using deceptive “Urgent – Open Immediately” language. This is message responsible.
2. Lumpy mail gets opened.
3. This is textbook example of how to do a word of mouth campaign. Chocolate covered grasshoppers? I had to share this with colleagues and with you.
4. A little mystery goes a long way. There was no sales copy—just a creative idea and a URL to learn more. Irresistible.
5. The landing page made it easy to share the video on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and and a host of other sites using an AddThis widget.

And the three things I didn’t love

1. Each tag was numbered, X of 5,000, and I understand after doing some research for this post that Grasshopper sent these packages to the people they deemed the 5,000 most influential people in America. Very flattering. But at first I thought I might need this code when I logged onto the website. Not so. This is not a limited edition keepsake, it’s a marketing piece. And by letting me know there were so many produced, it made me feel less special—at least initially.
2. The moving-text style video that was so fresh and interesting a year ago is beginning to get tired. I still like it, but it would seem every ‘movement’ has a video like this associated with it.
3. Which brings me to the whole ‘movement’ thing. I like to be inspired as much as the next entrepreneur, but I’m approaching my ‘movement’ saturation point. How many movements can one person truly join?

Still, Grasshopper has succeeded where most fail. In one fell swoop, they got my attention, held it, and they got me talking. And though I don’t need their service, If I did, I’d consider them.

So, what do you think of Grasshopper’s campaign?

Would you eat a chocolate covered grasshopper? (I won’t)

But if you’d like to try one, contact me and we’ll make it happen. I’ll post a video of you eating one here and you’ll be famous.

If you think the features are over the top, you’ll be shocked when you click on the “release date” button in the upper right hand corner.

So, what do you think?

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Thanks to my colleague, Mary Kate Baker, for reintroducing me to the Pomegranate.

Keep that in mind when you view The Lost Generation, a video that has now been viewed nearly 5 million times on YouTube.

The design is minimal—the concept and clever copy carry the day.

The first time I viewed this, I kept thinking “No way! There’s no way they’ll be able to pull this off in reverse!” Which, of course, they did.

It’s ironic that some might use the phrase The Lost Generation when comparing ad creatives from the past with today’s talent.

That’s not a fair comparison. It’s a different time and a different place. The media has changed as have our sensibilities as a society.

I’d argue that creatives of the past weren’t better or worse. They just faced different challenges.

The fact is, great concepts are timeless, and I’d argue that the video above would hold up in any era.

Do you agree or disagree?

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Inspiration for this post came from Tim Berry’s Planning Startup Stories Blog.

With a little help from the programmers and usability gurus at Facebook, I spammed my friends, colleagues, business associates, people who’ve considered hiring Outsource Marketing, and everyone else in my Gmail address book that didn’t have a Facebook account yet.

I’m not talking about Facebook application developers making it next to impossible to use the application without inviting friends—Facebook banned that functionality last year after over a million people petitioned the social networking site to end the practice.

No, I’m talking about Facebook.

About once a month, I upload my address book using the Facebook Friend Finder tool to see if any of my friends have joined. If the address they’ve registered with is in the system, I can decide if I want to send a friend request. Facebook’s privacy policy claims they will never contact or use this information, and they’ve been known to keep their word, so I’m okay doing this.

Since Facebook is growing quickly and I know a fair share of folks, I usually find several people I’m happy to see have recently joined. I select them and click okay.

Anyone that uses Facebook knows that that’s when the trouble starts.

Here’s the next screen you’ll see:

This screen shows all of the people in your address book that don’t have a Facebook account (or at least, they don’t have an account associated with that address).

The screen is similar to the previous one—the one listing the people that do have accounts. All the boxes are pre-checked for you. And the default button is blue, just like the previous form.

I’ve always called this the “Facebook Friend Spamming Tool” because if you aren’t really careful, that’s what you’ll do—spam all your friends that aren’t on Facebook.

I’ve seen this box at least a dozen times, and I always think to myself, “Good thing I was paying attention—I’d hate to hit that.”

Call me a fat-fingered dolt. Call me a dunce. Call me what you will. But I did this today.

I’m not sure who falls for it the most often: The folks that aren’t particularly comfortable with technology or the people that are highly proficient and move from screen to screen at a lightning fast pace.

Facebook wins, you lose

Facebook has surely benefited from this functionality. A lot of people signed up for Facebook after I erroneously sent that invite. Facebook wins.

While I’m happy some of my friends have joined, I’m certain I’ve pissed some folks off. In fact, I’ve already received a message from a person that has referred my firm work that explicitly asked me not to use her address when contacting her through a third party.

You could argue I win too because I’ve reconnected with some people in my address book. That’s only partially true—we would have found each other eventually when our address books meshed in the future.

What should Facebook do?

Should they eliminate this functionality? Uncheck the boxes by default? Add a confirmation message that you indeed want to invite everyone you know to join Facebook?

I’d appreciate your comments.

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