cleverness

From Mediocrity To Fame: A Viral Success Story

Hamilton Nolan · 03/17/08 03:07PM

When Virgin Mobile in Canada put out an ad with a Spitzer Sex Scandal theme just a day after the story broke, it was impressive. But any further Spitzer-themed ads that came to our attention after that just seemed derivative. Unless they managed to get themselves rejected by major media outlets for bad taste! Then, that would be a story. It's a strange situation when the marketing of an advertisement is far more clever than the ad itself, but that's what happened in the case of this ad from Scotch whisky brand The Balvenie. And here's why we're telling you this weird story at all: