I'd be blogging about this even if a) I weren't an obsessive Mets fan or b) I didn't try to con everyone visiting my blog on April Fool's Day into watching the music video for Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up (YouTube did it too).
The New York Mets are having a contest to choose the sing-along song that they will play during the eighth inning of every home game. Options provided include Brown Eyed Girl, Sweet Caroline, and Livin' on a Prayer. But there's also a write-in field for "other". And that's where the internet comes in.
There is a movement on Fark, Digg, and Reddit to get people to vote for Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up and "RickRoll" the Mets.
Now by definition, this isn't exactly RickRolling. That would mean people were clicking on a link to get to something they wanted to see, but were greeted by Astley instead.
But this is a great example of the web's ability to galvanize and mobilize. Even if it's for a silly prank, there's no reason why, that if you created an intriguing enough call to action, you couldn't at least create something similar to this and turn it into a meme.
You could argue that this was 'organic', but hey — the person that started all this had every intention of this to get written about, every intention of this getting as big as it has. Marketers are no different.
Where marketers and agencies typically fail is in trying to replicate and recreate, instead of letting themselves just become 'inspired by' what has already been successful. Originality, timeliness, and relevancy are always key aspects in developing a campaign that people actually get behind.
And that's what this is — a campaign. Ironic that average joes can do it much better than many brands can. But that's the nature of this medium, and why it's so important to spend enough time and resources against continually trying to figure it out. Life goes by pretty fast. If you don
About the author
- More at
