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29/11/2008 by
15622 views

Matt Harding Stars In Visa’s New Ad Campaign

Visa has launched a travel-focused campaign starring internet celebrity Matt Harding, who dances his way through several locations across Asia, promoting Visa’s global currency campaign.

In the new commercial Matt celebrates the hassle-free joy of the unnecessary currency exchange due to the mass acceptance of Visa, as he travels around the world. The advert debuted in Hong Kong and Korea and will be broadcasted in eight countries and territories in the Asia Pacific region over the next few weeks.

After high school Harding decided to skip university and become a video game developer. His career took him to Pandemic Studios in Brisbane for 2½ years. His first video, filmed while travelling with a co-worker, was made simply as a running gag for family and friends, but quickly spread virally across the web, when he posted his video of him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various international locations on his YouTube account mattharding2718 in 2005. Today over 1,3 million people have watched that video.

Unlike most viral web hits, Harding’s popularity has increased with time. The 2006 video took a little over two years to reach 10 million hits but the latest one, posted on YouTube on 20 June 2008, passed that mark in 83 days and has been viewed 13,242,894 times as of 2 December 2008. Both were sponsored by Stride, a brand of chewing gum created by Cadbury-Schweppes.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008)

For his 2008 video Harding spent 14 months travelling to 42 countries, just months after he returned from a world tour of 39 countries for his second internet video. Harding has been hired since to appear in several travel agency advertisements and by Google showing off his favourite dancing locations and by Yahoo, where Nicki Dugan dragged Matt hither and yon across the Yahoo! campus to shoot 33 scenes in less than seven hours.

Many created their own video with the goofy dance or made hilarious spoofs like Where The Hell is Matt’s Girlfriend?. And even local businesses tap into the Matt Harding mania such as South Brisbane real estate agent Bees Nees, hoping to get the same viral success.

Real estate agent Bees Nees dancing like Matt Harding

In May 2009, Matt will launch his first book containing a collection of anecdotes about making his videos. See also an interview with Matt Harding and his three lectures about the dancing video and how it was made.

For the Visa project Harding travelled just two weeks to China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam with his girlfriend, keeping a diary on his blog. “It was sort of like a paid vacation,” he said.

The ‘travel happy’ dance continues in a second Visa commercial and will feature cruise operators, hotel and restaurant staff, tour guides, and taxi drivers from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam.

Visa’s new television commercials are conceptualized and developed by BBDO.

Source: Visa Asia, SMH.com.au