The Marketing of Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is a TV show about a high school teacher who turns to a life of drug manufacturing and dealing to supplement his income after hearing he has terminal cancer. It stars Bryan Cranston as the teacher in question, who will be familiar to most as the father in Malcom in The Middle. To turn the screw on Cranston’s character, Walter White, his brother in law is a DEA agent. It also stars the excellent Bob Odenkirk, who just doesn’t make enough TV shows, as their slimeball lawyer Saul. Cranston’s role has won him the 2008 & 2009 Emmy’s for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for a performance that is simply superb. This post looks at the marketing of this highly unconventional TV show

When Music Virals Came of Age

The use of the internet to create a viral sensation is nothing new, but over the last few months there’s been a sense that the viral is coming of age. It is exemplified in music virals where the form is breaking new ground and moving to a new stage in its development. Artists are leveraging virals in new and interesting ways in order to generate extra revenues, which somewhat underlines the importance the music video still has to play in the marketing mix. Here’s four recent examples….

Heineken’s Football Stunt

Sometimes marketing can make you go wow! And this certainly did. Its centred around the Real Madrid versus AC Milan match last year. In Italy Heineken recruited 200 people, that is girlfriends, bosses and lecturers, to go and make their partners, workers and students attend a poetry and classical musical recital instead of watching that match. Over 1100 people attended the recital all under duress. Little did they know that it was all part of an elaborate stunt by Heineken to demonstrate that the most sacred moment guys have is watching football together. Once they were in the auditorium, news broadcasts and the big match build up kept cutting across to show footage of the guys wanting to be watching the match. The moment when the penny drops and they realise they will be watching the match is pretty cool the place erupts into excited applause. It’s moving stuff and not very often that can be said about marketing.I have a sneaky suspicion that this will make my Top 10 list of 2010.

VT: Crystal Swing, Tron Legacy, IamAmIWhoAmI, BMW

VT: March 16th, 2010

The weeks best virals includes Ireland’s crountry and western internet sensations Crystal Swing and how they became Irelands first viral stars, Tron Legacy and its viral camapign, the latest IamAmIWhoAmI viral shows whoever it is it isn’t Christina, how social media is transforming retail and the new viral from BMW.

Guerrilla, Ambient and Viral Movie Marketing (4): Cloverfield ‘V’ The Dark Knight

In previous parts I’ve looked at the use of new and unconventional marketing methods such as Guerrilla, Ambient and Viral techniques since 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. Part 4 focuses on two of the biggest films of 2008 Cloverfield and The Dark Knight.

Digital Music Event Marketing (1)

Digital Music Marketing Ideas… I don’t really post my own work to this blog, but before Christmas I did a bit of work with Betapond who are based here in Waterford, on a music related project. The brief was simple; marketing ideas, using digital and online channels that would engage the audience in new and exciting ways. A tall brief, but exciting. Click through, you know you want to….

VT: Paddy Power Banned, Lego Force Unleashed, Hungry Beast, Torpedo7.com

VT: March 9th, 2010

A round up of the weeks best virals including the new banned ad from Paddy Power gets an online airing, the excellent stop motion of Lego – The Force Unleashed, a short clip from an Oz based news show about the massive growth of Google into all areas of life including genetics and finally some jackass style stunts on a New Zealand golf course… to promote snowboarding obviously!

VT: Ok Go, Skoda, State of the Internet, Mercedes, IamAmIWhoAmI, Improv Everywhere

VT: Tuesday March 2nd, 2010 – The weeks best new virals: 1. Ok Go ‘This Too Shall Pass’ The new Ok Go video is on Youtube and its possible to embed! Last week I wrote about how EMI had signed a deal with the video sharing site that disabled the embed function. It would seem [...]

EMI’s Anti Viral Marketing Strategy

There’s a few basic rules in viral marketing that must be adhered to in order for the viral effect to work. They are; make it worthwhile (in other words why would people share it?) and make it as easy to share as possible. On the downside creating a viral hit is more than just two steps, it’s far from easy, on the upside once you have one it can become a very important tool in the marketing arsenal, something which can live on beyond it’s intended lifespan thanks to the likes of Youtube. This kind of marketing depends on people to ‘share it’ therefore there is no additional costs to the ‘owner’ outside of production costs making it highly effective, and incredibly difficult to pull off. So what do you do when you have a viral hit that after 4 years has clocked up over 50 million views and still gets 10,000 views per day?

VT: Puma, Audi V BMW, Artschool Clip, Youtube & Google Corner

VT: Tuesday Feb 23rd, 2010. The best of the week in virals featuring Puma, Audi, BMW, the Art school project that went viral, the first ever Youtube clip and Google Corner