Brother films his spoiled brat sister as she complains about the color of the car she got as a gift.
“My Sister Freaks Out“ Video note reads: “haha, my sister is so dumb. here she is freaking out on her birthday over the wrong color car. this is priceless…” (December 14, 2006)
Sister responds: “I’m not a spoiled brat!” (December 20th)
“MacKenzie gets what MacKenzie wants“ (December 20th)
“MacKenzie sells her car for $9.99″ (December 28th)
“And the winner is…” (January12, 2007)
the Dominoes marketing campaign!
If you didn’t know, the video series was part of a viral video marketing campaign to market Dominoes pizza. What is interesting is that advertisers successfully studied, copied and exploited a non-commercial medium to promote their product; the videos did not look professional, both the brother and the sister had their own accounts, videos were posted in a time frame consistent with the story. Finally, the videos elicited responses from other viewers.
Dominoes essentially found a way to exploit the user-generated format of YouTube to serve their own ends. (1) Whether they actually sold more pizzas after people realized they had been mislead, I don’t know.
notes:
(1) For a further discussion on this topic you might like: Consumed, How markets corrupt children, infantilize adults, and swallow citizens whole. by Benjamin R. Barber. New York. W.W. Norton and Company, 2007 (pages 213-290) In fact, a good deal of what is written above is directly inspired by the book. The book is a bit dogmatic but it might be worth your time if you care about these things.
“Brother’s” profile on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MySisterIsLame
“MacKenzie’s” profile:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MacKenzieheartsu
(why her profile does not have a blue background puzzles me)
