Marketing whizzes for a movie called I Love You, Beth Cooper figured that a good idea to generate "buzz" would be to pay some valedictorian for a product placement in her high school graduation speech. They were wrong.

They paid Kenya Mejia $1,800 to say "I love you, Jake Minor!" in her actual graduation speech, the idea being that she would say she was inspired to call out her crush by seeing the same thing done in this movie, I Love You, Beth Cooper. Then the video of this would "go viral," supposedly. Let us count the ways in which this plan failed.

1. The movie bombed. "Even Ms. Mejia hasn't seen it." Return-on-investment fail.

2. The Fox-produced-but-supposedly-just-amateur YouTube video the company posted of the stunt barely has over 2,000 hits. Why would anyone care? They would not. Viral fail.

3. The school district is pissed. Education fail

4. This "Jake Minor" character that Kenya called out as her crush is not even her boyfriend. Although her boyfriend supposedly "endorsed it," hopefully for a hefty cut of the check. Furthermore, Jake Minor has a girlfriend of his own. His assessment of Kenya: "She's pretty quiet." Love connection fail.

Let us never try this again.

[WSJ]