The latest in Ray-Ban's damned Never Hide campaign

I say that with frustration because I actually really like it. The whole campaign's done a really good job and I love the ideas, the execution and the sheer brilliance of the "virality" if you will.



It's done by "Never Hide Films" and you can check out the youtube page here.

This is one of the first of the Never Hide campaign...fuckin nasty.


Here's an interesting breakdown of the good and the bad things about these viral campaigns. The learnings are actually pretty applicable.

The Good:

-Unique and interesting videos draw in a large and varied audience.
-Success from one video transfers to the next through built-in tools that YouTube provides.
-Tapping into an existing meme ensures that the videos become part of an established group of popular content.
-Shock-and-awe approach helps the videos stand out from the crowd.
-Willingness to take a risk results in some videos that aren’t successful, but larger successes when a video does resonate well within the YouTube community.

The Bad:

-Never Hide Films created their own Digg account to promote the films through that channel, but did not put enough time or effort into that account to make the submissions a success, resulting in a missed opportunity for additional views.
-The videos are buried inside of Ray-Bans’ Flash website rather than being featured on their own URL, eliminating any social networking or social bookmarking potential.
-Branding is too subtle and often goes unnoticed, as the videos could have featured a post-roll ad without a huge loss in authenticity once the initial ‘real or fake’ debates ended.
-Low quality videos make it difficult to see many of the effects clearly.

The Future:

Viral videos push the boundaries of decency in an effort to stand out from the crowd, resulting in a series of hits and misses that need to be optimized once the community finds a video that it likes.

I swear this is the last in my Ray-Ban love-fest, but this final video is proof of the brilliance that's gone into the campaign. First of all, they create a great guerilla advertising tactic by taking these two douchebags into the streets, getting girls to dance with them and capturing eyes, while theirs are covered by (super cool) Ray-Bans. Then, they turn it into a damn viral video. Smart bastards.