Help Little August Find His Daddy
No doubt I’m playing right into the hands of a hoax here, but I’ll go along with it for now.
Karen, a 27 year old Danish woman from Copenhagen, is hoping to find her son’s missing father through the use of Youtube. I watched the video yesterday when the ticker stood at an impressive 400,000 odd views. Today that number has increased to over 700,000 – talk about being viral!
To my mind this could be one of two things. It could turn out to be a brilliant way to simplify, what otherwise could have been a long and gruesome search for this kid’s dad – in which case I hope this post is of at least some help. James Karl Buck twittered his way out of prison, so why not Youtube yourself a missing dad?
Or it could be just another addition to an already long list of internet hoaxes.
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Funny how she’s in this advert…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXiFF7wEFYE
and her names not Karen here http://www.facebook.com/ditte.arnth
They need to use someone who’s never acted before if they really want to fool people.
This is actually a great campaign. It turns out that it’s the official department of tourism in Denmark who’s responsible for the video. Fantastic work… They made it all over the world in a matter of days, and according to the agency who made the video they only paid the same amount as 30 seconds of national TV commercial – Great work
Read more about the campaign here
Thanks for clarifying that Dean!
I disagree it’s a great campaign though. Skim reading the Youtube comments a lot of people feel duped, including many leading newspapers in Denmark that fell for the story. They caused a stir and people fell for their story, but now they feel conned.
This campaign proves the power of the internet in story telling and spreading something viraly, but more importantly it highlights the importance of transparancy and authenticity.
Never make people feel stupid.
Wouldn’t this campaign violate WOMMA’s code of ethics, the honesty of identity principle?
“Clear disclosure of identity is vital to establishing trust and credibility. We do not blur identification in a manner that might confuse or mislead consumers as to the true identity of the individual with whom they are communicating, or instruct or imply that others should do so.”
Actually, it might even be against EU law – http://bit.ly/g3Z10.
Besides that, I do agree that it is a campaign that is highly successful in tapping into human pro social behaviour, our will to help other people out.
No doubts here whether it’s a strong viral or not. But I agree with Daan whether the outcome has helped the Denmark becoming a better “brand”. Of course many people will say, bad attention is still attention, but I doubt if we all going to book an autumn holiday to Denmark now…
Coincidentally I just booked a trip to Denmark. The viral has done a job in bringing attention on Denmark. Whether it has helped is arguable, but it won’t stop me visiting that great country.