Miracle Burger King Bun found at McD?

Here is a viral marketing ploy that I was sent (seeded?) from two different email addresses within  20 Minutes this morning. A couple of guyss purchase a McD burger and find an image of „the king“ toasted into the bun.

One of the links they sent me leads to a page, where a guy speculates about this mystery, seemingly he always speculates about mysteries like that:

Listen I’m one of those guys who never believes shit like this.   Like when people see Jesus in their banana or they get a p*nis shaped cheeto I’m always like relax.   It’s just a fucking cheeto. But this one is different. I mean if that’s not the fucking King in this guy’s bun than I don’t know what is.

All of this reminds me, somehow, of the Lincoln Fry Mystery-Viral campaign in 2005, where a French fry in the shape of Lincolns silhouette caused some buzz; note: all of the links in my 2005 blogpost don’t work properly any longer, unfortunately. Luckily, the campaign made it into Wikipedia, so you can find some more details there. (The prop used in that campaign was sold for 75k on a yahoo auction. I wonder for how much the bun will sell…?)

Guerilla advertising on an airplane

Germanwings and easyjet are two low budget airlines competing on the german market. German wings now came up with a peculiar idea of comparative advertising. It’s a novel idea, however I am not sure if I really like the execution, but judge for yourself:

Book a flight on Oceanic Flight 815 if you want to get lost.

I am badly hooked on the series „lost„, as I wrote in my German Blog already. The sixth and supposedly last season started yesterday in the US (the parts are available in Germany always one day later), however in the last couple of days / weeks a few marketing gigs have already taken place. Such as this one: you can book a flight on Oceanic 815 from Sydney to L.A. on kayak.com – for a horrendous price, of course. Quite a nice idea!

(via adverlab)

Jill and Kevin’s viral wedding video: just a marketing trick?

I suppose you all remember Jill and Kevin’s wedding video, in which the couple and a few of their friends were dancing to „forever“ by Chris Brown?

For those living outside Germany, here it is (YouTube is blocking music videos in Germany):

I really liked that video and copied it into my German Blogs. I enjoyed the story of how this idea came about (here is some background info about the wedding). I liked the idea of the couple wanting to celebrat their most important day in a special way. And I am sure quite a few of the many million who have watched this video thought alike.

However, just a few days ago, I found an article in the Swiss Newspaper „Neue Zürcher Zeitung“ that states that Jill and Kevin’s video hasn’t only gone viral, instead it was part of a viral markting campaign! Even the website they put up is a landing page for the campaign.

Hard to believe, I have to admit. Highly disappointing if it’s true.

So what was it marketing for? In that article it says that it was a campaign for the music of Chris Brown, who had popularity challenges and low record sales after having hit his girlfriend Rihanna.

Which is apparently the reason why you could not only purchase the song „Forever“ via Jill and Kevin’s website, but also donate for the Sheila-Wellstone-Institut, which is a foundation against domestic violence.

I am not sure whether this story is true, since I haven’t heard anywhere else about it. But if it is, then I am heavily disappointed:

People (including myself of course) believed this story to be true – only to find out the they have been tricked by a marketing campaign. Working in advertising myself, I know about the current challenges to get the attention of the target audience. But lying and cheating should never be an option for any marketer.

So I wonder: is it true, was it really just a marketing campaign? Does anyone know?