OK GO Goes Viral Again With Help From State Farm
OK GO was one of the first bands whose success could largely be traced to YouTube and a self-made viral video. So bloggers went wild when a new OK GO clip was released in January with the viral embedding turned off. EMI and revenue sharing were blamed and the band let their displeasure be known t
o fans in an open letter that was just a little too careful not to upset anyone.
Just Like A Good Neighbor, State Farm Was There
Now OK GO is back with a new embeddable video for the same song thanks to a sponsorship deal with a State Farm Insurance who get a little bit of logo exposure early in the clip. And just 72 hours after posting, the new viral video is over 800,000 plays on YouTube alone.
Perhaps every brand and ad agency should hire someone to surf the web all day looking for public mistakes by other corporations that they can correct and share karmic credit for.
Watch the new video:
Still blows me away that the labels don’t recognize the value of internet exposure, even if that exposure relies on free content. OK GO would not be where they are today if it were not for their first viral video.
Right on Steve E., and you have to wonder why the labels did not look for a sponser to do this before the uproar. Seems like some people at the major labels just want sit on there hands and get paid.
The first video was also just not that interesting. It was a fine video but nothing i felt compelled to spread. You can’t force viral. Although after this maybe that should be revised to sometimes you need multiple attempts to find something viral.
Love ok go ….happy to see they can stand up, make the case for what’s obviousely right and be heard. Gives me hope! One way or another this whole thing is gonna have to move forward and see the demise of the old people in charge…that nyt oped was a brilliant flanking maneouvre.
Nice,
bbb