A movie filmed in 14 months, across 42 countries with a cast of thousands.
No, it’s not the second coming of Cecil B. DeMille.
It’s one of the best examples of a viral video you’ll see: in 17 days, this video have been viewed nearly 4.6 million times.
As crazy as it may sound, “Where the hell is Matt?” will probably be the best 4 minutes and 29 seconds you invest this week and it might even bring a tear to your eye.
As I watched, I couldn’t help but wonder when the sponsor’s ad was going to appear. What are they trying to sell? A video like this needs funding, right?
Well, the sponsor was finally listed in the final 2.5 seconds, after the credits.
This is an incredible (and commendable) show of restraint by the sponsor, I’d say. Given the nature of the video, I’d argue they’ve built significant good will.
Do you believe virals like this are too subtle and should do more selling, or is this approach a breath of fresh air?
Comment below to weigh in.
Mario Sundar, Community Evangelist at LinkedIn shared this with me via Twitter (follow Mario). Here’s his post on the topic.
.
I first saw the WTHIM video a few days ago and found my self asking the same question…”Where’s the sponsor?” I went to wherethehellismatt.com and read the FAQ about how Stride sponsored him, but couldn’t find the big obnoxious banner ads anywhere. Intrigued by how Stride was using the video, I went to stridegum.com to see if I could get more information and they gave me more Matt. I read this post asking about where was Stride gum?
Do you see where I’m going with this? 🙂 Stride Gum got more out of me by being subtle and giving me something fun than they ever could have with flashing logos and overt marketing. I mean look at us…we’re talking about gum on a marketing blog. Nice work, Stride.
Agreed. Looks like Stride Gum did bet on this video and I hope it works out for them – just so we could find more such videos in the future.