Fake Stunt That Duped Real Newscast Goes Viral

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Look what's landed on the Viral Chart this week: the now-infamous "Liquid Mountaineering" spot for outdoor apparel maker Hi-Tec. Infamous because the faux documentary about nutty European adventurers and their new "sport" was picked up as real news by D.C.'s NBC affiliate in May, which pretty much sets the bar for "earned media" when it comes to web video.

The gaffe was widely covered on sites such as Mediaite (follow link to the WUSA segment) and Gawker, which added a helpful piece on how not to fall for a viral marketing scheme. Service-y! The video, which Hi-Tec once denied any connection to, came in at No. 3 with more than 2.5 million views last week across 34 different placements, including one on College Humor. Now, there's even a making-of video where Hi-Tec explains how water running is really done.

Duping a newscast is a pretty awesome feat, but so is getting Fox News' Bill O' Reilly to rail against your spot, which is what happened when a French TV ad for McDonald's hit the web. The spot, "Come As You Are," produced by Euro RSCG (of Evian "Roller Babies" fame) is pretty remarkable in that it shows an earnest but clueless father trying to connect with his homosexual son. In a McDonald's.

Fox analyst Jane Skinner called the campaign, which shows people from different walks of life in McDonald's, "over-reaching." A McDonald's brand manager explained in a statement Fox read on the air: "We wanted to show society the way it is today, without judging. There is obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today." The ad is worth watching. Welcome, McDonald's, to the Viral Video Chart.

The No. 1 video this week deserves mention because it reaches back to one of the seminal YouTube stunts to pitch Coke's newest beverage brand, Coke Zero. People have been dropping Mentos into soda bottles and posting the shenanigans to YouTube for nearly five years. Guess what? It still works! The guys from producer Eepybird were enshrined in Weezer's homage to YouTube celebrity, Pork and Beans (thank Vevo for the pre-roll). This time they created a Coke Zero and Mentos-powered Rocket Car. Watch below or better yet, go to their site and watch in 3-D.

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**	Watch the Spot
1	New	Coke Zero, Mentos	Rocket Car	Eepybird	3,107,152	New
2	1	Nike	Write the Future	Wieden & Kennedy	2,664,653	-65%
3	New	Hi-Tec	Liquid Mountaineering	CCCP	2,159,758	New
4	New	McDonald's	Come As You Are	BETC Euro RSCG	2,154,626	New
5	2	Pepsi	Oh Africa	N/A	1,123,623	-25%
6	5	Fortnight Lingerie	Super Sexy CPR	Red Urban	1,035,169	16%
7	4	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	928,045	0%
8	3	Toyota	The Sienna Family	Saatchi & Saatchi	808,641	-32%
9	Back on Chart	Gillette	Uncut	Greenlight Media & Marketing	783,999	Back on Chart
10	7	YouTube	YouTube Turns 5	N/A	746,587	+2%
Source: Visible Measures *The Visible Measures Top 10 Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart focuses on brand-driven viral video ads that appear on online-video-sharing destinations. Each campaign is measured on a True Reach basis, which includes viewership of both brand-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations. Note: This analysis does not include Visible Measures' paid-placement (i.e., overlays, pre-/mid-/post-roll) performance data or video views on private sites. This chart does not include movie trailers, video-game campaigns, TV show or media network promotions, or public service announcements. View-count results are incremental by week. **Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before. To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact Visible Measures directly.