Brilliant viral video: Where the hell is Matt?

Brilliant viral video: Where the hell is Matt?

Earlier this week, I posted about the Susan Boyle video which has gone astronomically viral in a matter of days. But not all viral videos need to be seen by 50 million people over the course of a few days to be deemed viral and clever.

Introducing Where the hell is Matt?. If you haven’t heard or seen of this, it’s a great example of a viral video which is not only entertaining and slightly infectious, but has also helped a business to achieve substantial and measurable growth.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY]

Although he started out doing this under his own steam in 2003, Matt was soon spotted by a clever marketing person at Stride, makers of chewing gum. They quickly spotted the opportunity and decided to sponsor him, enabling him to visit so many more countries, extend and update his videos and finally achieve massive virality and popularity on YouTube.

So why would they bother doing this? Because they realised that by being associated with the video, they would raise the profile of their brand, and therefore possibly sales. So what happened? Sales rose, significantly.

As one blogger put it: "What started as a silly vacation video is now a low-cost YouTube serial hit attracting greater buzz than some multimillion-dollar TV ad campaigns."

This is a great case study. It’s a great example of video having a huge impact on business. And I particularly like it because it’s also a superb example of business understanding how social media works and rather than trying to hijack it, actually harnessing a social media opportunity.

They've even given Matt a home on their website.  Aw shucks ...

But he's got his own home.

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