While on a recent speaking engagement to Lincoln, NE, I stumbled on (via a blog I don't recall sorry) to this YouTube video about a anthropological introduction to YouTube. You should take 53 minutes to watch it too -- really good stuff. Tonight my 9 year old son is repeating the "Charlie Bit Me" YouTube video -- which I first was exposed to by the above video. I go to YouTube to show my wife the video and my son pops in to watch. Then he tells me to go to the Laughing Baby video. If you're in need of a laugh, watch it. Very, very funny. Then about an hour later as I'm working away -- the laughing baby video appears on our TV as part of an AIG commercial airing in the Olympic coverage. So here you have this little kid whose parents thought him funny and put a video of him up on YouTube. Not unlike I did with my own children when I uploaded Fireman Xmas and Maes talking. Which has me wondering, if I want my kids to be famous or maybe famous myself one day, should I contact talent agents or just post a bunch of YouTube videos? Seriously though, think about how a random video of a baby laughing makes its way into the human psyche -- heck my 9 year old knows about it -- and then a shrewd advertiser co-ops it to make a pretty inexpensive but eye or maybe ear catching commercial. In a world where advertisers have to reach an ever fragmenting consumer -- the ability to produce lots of communications in lots of channels without breaking the bank will be a key attribute of successful agencies I think. Interesting to see AIG and others beginning to explore places like YouTube for ideas and footage to help them achieve this goal.
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