Probably the biggest viral marketing success of the year has come not from an advertising agency but from the Royal Dragoon Guards, based at their Al Faw base in Iraq. The squaddies decided to make a spoof video of the Tony Christie song 'Is this the Way to Amarillo', which recently went back to the top of the UK charts as a result of the excellent charity video by Peter Kay. The video clip, which features members of the Royal Dragoon Guards mimicking the Peter Kay video, was sent to friends in the UK but so many people tried to downlad it that the MoD server could not cope.
If you'd like to see a short news clip about the video, take a look at the BBC website -
'Amarillo' video crashes MoD PCs; though for the full version I'd recommend you go to The Sun newspaper and download it from there (you pay £0.50 but all proceeds go to the Armed Forces Memorial Appeal)
Spoof is barrel of laughs (The Sun)
Popularity: 1% [?]
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Ain’t that the bummer with viral marketing? It seems you just never know what’s going to work and what isn’t. These guys did it for fun and had great success, others do it professionally and it’s a disaster…
The guys we really want creating viral campaigns are the ones who spread all the viruses – they seem to have the knack – if only they could channel their creativity into something useful!
Richard
I think that there are quite a few important variables at play here. Firstly, you have a popular song which seems to resonate with people – not just as a comic relief song but was also mimicked by a popular comedian whose video included well-known UK personalities. Secondly, you have a bunch of lads (he boys next door) who are in a place they don’t want to be and who, traditionally, have always been respected by the rest of the general public. Thirdly, they sent the video out to the “right” – possibly (probably?) by accident – who were able to virally sent out the message to the right communicators. Easy, eh!