Sometimes a story seems too good to be true. Last month we reported about a charming Geek Wedding Proposal Video, presumably made by Frank when proposed to his girlfriend Kasey on a bridge in Central Park. A band played her favorite song, Frank appeared in a rowboat under the bridge, and a perfectly executed ring-toss was made to his fiancé-to-be – all captured by four synchronized iPhones and a MacBook Pro.
It appears The Cult and the video’s viewers were the victims of a hoax. According to Mashable, it was made to promote a new business venture that specializes on mining the marketing potential of viral videos.
The piece was staged by the startup Thinkmodo, founded by Michael Krivicka and former Saturday Night Live producer James Percelay and set to launch early next year. Krivicka spoke to Mashable about the effort:
“Since viral videos are both art and science, we wanted to merge both elements to introduce predictability to the videos’ success,” Krivicka tells us. “As part of our ’study’ we staged an elaborate marriage proposal in Central Park and fused tech and romance to see how well each would be received if merged.”
“Would men be drawn by the awesome iPhone app (which unfortunately doesn’t exist) or would women cry and wonder why Frank threw the ring (which was never in the box)? Since our video was covered by outlets like Glamour as well as CNET, we learned that, contrary to conventional wisdom, content can be made to appeal to both sexes without lessening the appeal to each.”
Some viewers (and CNET) were skeptical of the video’s authenticity from the start, and a few commented on the possibility that the piece was staged or covertly made by Apple as viral marketing. While Apple was not involved, those suspicions proved correct and many people were taken in by the promise of a good story; the video currently has over 420,000 hits on YouTube.
While effective in getting results, viral marketing is an ethical slippery slope. With traditional advertising you know somebody is promoting a product, and realize that your emotions are being manipulated. In viral efforts the same thing is happening, but you believe the message is genuine due to your trust in the messenger. This technique has become a very a profitable form of promotion – and deceit.
The video is charming, too bad it’s not genuine. Trust and honesty are tried and true techniques that withstand the test of time, and all marketing fads.
What’s your feeling on the video, and viral marketing efforts in general? Let us know in the comments.
