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Leading up to their newest release “The Last Exorcism”, a film by the brilliant Eli Roth about a young girl possessed by an evil spirit, Lions Gate Entertainment ran a great viral campaign on the webcam driven social site Chatroulette. If you are unfamiliar, Chatroulette is a site that allows users to randomly connect with others via webcam. Usually, Chatroulette would be considered one of the worst places to effectively reach and engage your audience; the visitors are typically teenage guys (and old men) who are there to try to either harass girls, expose themselves, or simply be as offensive as possible. In a brilliant move, this viral campaign perfectly engages and shocks this particularly tough demographic. It grabs the viewer’s attention by starting out as a seemingly normal Chatroulette encounter with an attractive and promiscuous girl who appears to be getting ready to undress. After a couple seconds and the audience is completely engrossed, the “conversation” takes an unexpected terrifying turn. Without ruining the surprise, I will simply say the campaign is brilliant, shocking, and fits the space exceptionally well.  The video contains language NSFW.

Besides the Chatroulette campaign, they have also created a fictional site for the movie’s priest character with other viral videos to provide a rich backstory leading up to the movie.

Earlier this week Gillette posted a viral video on their YouTube channel featuring Roger Federer knocking a can off a crew member’s head during a photo shoot. Although obviously staged, the video is a good example of how brands can effectively advertise using viral video. Although the video is shot in high definition quality, certain production elements were left out or changed to give it a realistic “raw” feel making it seem more like authentic user generated content than a branded communication.

Instead of littering the video with animated titles and using background music, the video is meant to look as if it was shot on the fly, unplanned with no preparation. The video is filmed shaky, but only when it can be in between important shots, and, , although it seems forced, there is also background conversation. By trying very hard to make it seem unplanned viewers could just assume it was coincidental that the lighting for the shot was so good. Although its authenticity could be argued, the video excels solely because of its content; its an entertaining stunt. YouTube viewers would take the time to watch the clip because of the awesome trick shot no matter who it was performed by and what razor they prefer. But in only two days the video has over a million views and, although their razors are never mentioned, has still managed to increase Gillette’s brand exposure.

Earlier this week when JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, fed up with abusive passengers, snapped and quit his job in the likely most grandiose way imaginable it could have been a massive PR nightmare for the low cost airliner. After all, after a confrontation with a rude customer, he reportedly got on the PA system and declared: “To the passenger who just called me a motherf***er, f**k you. I’ve been in this business 28 years, and I’ve had it.” Then, after cursing out the entire flight walked into the galley, grabbed some beers, activated the plane’s emergency chute, slid down, and ran to his car. His stunt later got him arrested and he now faces criminal charges including criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. When authorities showed up at his house to apprehend Slater he was “in the midst of having sexual relations.”

One would assume having your flight attendant publically curse out the entire flight, take alcohol, disregard safety procedures, and then get arrested while having sex would be terrible press and reflect poorly on the company. Luckily for JetBlue, it has received the opposite reception. Slater has become a modern day folk hero, sick of taking crap from rude, selfish, disrespectful people. Instead of damaging the JetBlue brand he seems to have invigorated it. People are talking about the event; it has received national coverage over the last few days, and Slater is currently the number one trending topic on Twitter but it is in a positive light. His facebook fan page has over 100,000 fans and there are other pages that include “Steven Slater Legal Defense Fund” and “I hate the motherf***er who called Steven Slater a motherf***er.” Slater even has his own folk songs; there are multiple versions of “The Ballad of Steven Slater” up on YouTube.

Like a modern day Howard Beal, he was “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” and the American people love him for it. His story seems to resonate with the millions of Americans who currently or at one time had a customer service job and forced to deal with nasty, intolerable customers. Luckily for JetBlue, they have not experienced a repeat of their 2007 PR debacle following the Valentines Day snow storms, instead they have spawned a modern folk hero for the tired and powerless who isn’t afraid to say what we all have wanted to at one point or another.

It’s that time of the year again! Football season is right around the corner and the media is already buzzing. Brett Favre is announcing his retirement that will not happen and cable providers are starting to promote NFL sports packages. This year, to promote their NFL Sunday Ticket package, DirecTV is reportedly spending close to $100 million on a new ad campaign. The package allows fans to watch NFL games that are not available through their local affiliates. They have started the campaign with TV spots that focus on transplanted fans who are now able to watch their favorite team in a different city and the residents of their new city that don’t take kindly to NFL rivals and their supporters. The first ad “Cheese Heads” features die hard Green Bay Packers fans finding a clever way to welcome San Francisco fans to the neighborhood  I enjoyed these ads because they are entertaining and focus on the major selling point of the package in a creative way. The ads below “Massfans” and “Dallas Dog” feature Dolphin hating New Englanders and a dog named “Troy Barkman” from a Cowboy household that doesn’t like its new neighbor who happens to be a Redskins fan.