The Serial Murderer Goes Viral

August 10th, 2007 by Justin Dickinson

Dexter, a series on Showtime about to enter its second season, stars Michael C. Hall as a Forensic expert who happens to also be a serial killer. The catch is that his victims are all other killers.

Head over to Icetruck.tv and you’ll find what looks like any of a dozen or more YouTube clones. You’ll very quickly realize it’s something else entirely. Add this to the list with the “Snakes on a Plane” personalized voicemail from Sam Jackson along with a myriad of similar personalized messaging promotions. This one, however, is the first I’ve seen to use video, and in such a wonderfully creative way. The cheesiness factor is low, it all seems really clean. I bet you could even dupe a few people who might not be very web-savvy.

From an advertising standpoint, this is a great campaign because it satisfies what are, to me, the two tenets of a successful viral ad.

1. Something that was made for little money, but does what it sets out to do without seeming like an ad.
2. Has a certain ‘cool’ or ‘wow’ factor, something we haven’t seen before, that makes it viable for word-of-mouth success.

Without featuring the big name actors (as all the other campaigns like this have) they get a product that was probably produced on the cheap. The incorporation of the personal data is really inspired, it made me laugh both times it showed up (I sent it to myself the first time).

Scare your friends!

If you don’t have any friends, or any time, you can look at mine to see the reveal.

This entry was posted by Justin Dickinson on Friday, August 10th, 2007 and is filed under Marketing, Video, Viral Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.