Nintendo is facing accusations that a popular Youtube video is nothing more than a viral-video marketing campaign for the Wii Fit, reports The Telegraph. The video, quite simply, features a young woman using a virtual hula-hoop in her underwear. What separates it from other videos is that the 2 people in the video have both been identified as employees of the same advertising company. Nintendo denies the allegations. The video and details, inside…
The article says,
The clip, which has been viewed more than two million times, shows 25-year-old Lauren Bernat hula hooping in time with the fitness video game.
Rumours that the clip was a clever marketing ploy for the Wii Fit spread after it emerged that both Miss Bernat and her boyfriend, who filmed the footage, work in advertising.
Giovanny Gutierrez, 30, works as director of interactive media for Tinsley Advertising in Miami, Florida. According to his biography on the firm’s website, he “creates web, e-mail and interactive marketing solutions that perfectly integrate with television, radio and print campaigns.”
“Gio is a master of e-commerce, having created web portals for scores of businesses,” the biography adds.
Miss Bernat works as an account executive at Tinsley Advertising, where her duties include “evaluating the responses to our Internet advertising”.
But Nintendo has denied that the footage is part of an advertising campaign. “This has and is absolutely 100 per cent nothing to do with Nintendo,” a spokesman said. “Nintendo did not create it and were not aware of it until it was brought it to our attention.”
Mr Gutierrez has also denied that it was a viral advert for the Wii Fit.
The game, which allows Nintendo Wii owners to do a range of exercises and stretches under the guidance of on on-screen fitness expert, hardly needs the free publicity, having sold more than 300,000 copies in the UK in its first two weeks on sale, and sold out in many parts of the world.
But the YouTube affair has done much to boost the profile of Mr Gutierrez and his agency.
The evidence that this is an organized marketing campaign seems circumstantial to us. However, advertisers are always coming up with new ways to turn attention toward new products so who knows? We’ll just have to keep watching the video until we figure it out.
Wii Fit underwear girl: A marketing hoax? [The Telegraph]
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@loueloui: Actually BSG also shows women in their underwear, so everyone has seen it!
I’d “boost” her “profile”, if you know what I mean.
*Wiggles eyebrows* Aww riiiight.
I agree with several of you that are saying she should not be fired for an off-the-clock activity. IF and ONLY IF this is not a viral ad campaign, it reminds me of the teachers we keep hearing about that are fired because people find “immoral” pictures of them online. It also reminds me of homosexual military members that are kicked out for their off-duty life.
SO WHAT?! As long as the teacher/ad executive/soldier does not bring that material/activity to work, it should have no bearing on the future of their job(s).
The only people that should be given crap for their off-the-clock activity are those that campaign against it FOR their jobs (i.e. politicians, religious leaders, etc).
/sure it’s incredibly stupid to put that kind of thing online when you can be indentified, but without these incredibly stupid acts the Internet wouldn’t be nearly as amusing.
//also don’t forget to check out some of the RESPONSES to this video. They’re hilarious!
://lj-toys.com/?journalid=445771&moduleid=15&preview=&auth_token=sessionless:1213635600:embedcontentiurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZwEw6f2wtwc/default.jpg
@jdlyga: Frunkis
@edicius: Yes, yes you are.
@Kevino: Viral advertising makes you not talk about a product in a manner that spreads information about it in a viral manner? Because that’s all viral advertising wants you to do. The goal isn’t to make you want to buy the product then and there, but go around talking about the product. Like any good game of telephone, eventually even people who were talking about it in a “boy that Wii advertisement about product X is stupid” sense will get their message boiled down to “Wii product X!”
Think about it. This ad, if it was actually from Nintendo, offers no actual information about the product. It isn’t encouraging anyone with facts about it, and the product itself isn’t even center stage. It’s not a selling point tool as much as a “Gabbo Gabbo Gabbo – BUT WHAT IS GABBO NOW I WANT TO KNOW” tool. And at that point people will google it or pass it by at a store and go “oh isn’t that the thing from the thing that someone once mentioned to me.”
man that’s some good hulla hooping! who cares!
she gets my vote for hulla olympics!!!
Me like YouTube video. Nothing wrong with this at all.
@sketchy: Don’t forget his radio partner Ramon
Who cares? It’s not like it’s that “All I Want For X-mas ia a PSP” debacle: [consumerist.com]
I do not care.
Who cares if it’s marketing from Nintendo. If it was, I love Nintendo forever.
Because this is the best thing I have ever seen.
Ever.
This is GOOD advertising, regardless of who or why.
Good advertising. Makes me want to run right out and get a nice piece of ass.
I just don’t get it. Maybe because whoever that girl is, is wearing underoos, and is young enough to be my daughter.
And so, as a protective father-type, my first impulse is to beat up that chump filming her and putting her on the internet. I would probably break his arm just a little bit, just so he remembers not to be an idiot ever again, and keep things that should be private, to himself.
But that’s just me.
Sorry, I didn’t bother reading the article, I was too busy watching her fine behind doing that wiggle.
~
I’m shocked–SHOCKED–that someone might film a young, innocent woman in her small clothes enjoying a game for the television! And for advertising, no less?! Never–NEVER–has such a scandalously clad member of the fairer sex been photogrammed in such a compromising get up especially in the name of some product! SHOCKED!
Thankfully, I will now retreat to the rest of these internets, those without such scanty clothing and/or moral fiber!
Everyone between 25 and 35 is in advertising.
“IT’S JUST SOFTCORE PORN.
Why is everyone flocking to watch this somewhat attractive woman in her underwear move her but around in a semi-circle when you can see the same thing on any given episode of Sex and the City? (protest all you want, I still watch it on mute) And lets not forget pretty much every show on G4TV or Spike finds a way to sexually exploit some woman in a bathing suit, or have we already forgotten the hotdog swallowing contest on Attack of the Show?
I know what you’re going to say “But it’s funny too!”, bullshit, it’s mildly amusing at best, and thats not why you watched it. “
- Taken From [www.twobitnews.com]
If this is a viral campaign, are all the other girls shaking their asses on Youtube playing with Wiis (hahaha, and people mocked the name when it came out) also paid to do so?
IIRC, the guy linked the video directly to his advertising firm…at least when I saw it.
But where can I purchase the Wii? This is the important question here. Also – I can imagine this becoming a new fetish. A lot of Johns pay prostitutes large sums of money to do strange things with them – strange things that don’t include sex. Like rolling eggs to each other on a hardwood floor. Most prostitutes prefer the sex stuff and will charge more for the “weird” stuff that doesn’t involve sex. So I can just imagine some guys paying prostitutes just to watch them play Wii Fit in front of them in undies.