Overly Attached Computer – Cashing in on a Meme
Laina became an internet meme as the Overly Attached Girlfriend by rewording a Justin Beiber song, turning her into the web’s favorite attached-to-the-hip girlfriend. Now she’s been courted by UK-based marketing agency The Viral Factory to promote Samsung’s SSD drives in this piece of “viral advertising”.
It’s a clever ad playing on a popular meme – But will it benefit the client? Or is it riding out a joke that’s already over for meaningless views? When marketing departments come around to the joke, is there any joke left to be in on?
I saw this on Monday, I thought it was cute but didn’t find it “viral”. It’s such a touchy subject, “viral videos” that is. I know every organization wants a viral campaign, but they just don’t understand how it actually works, Samsung included. I would be willing to bet that this meme dies off over the next couple weeks and the internet finds something new to play with. In my opinion, the most effective viral campaign needs to manifest on it’s own, you don’t take a successful meme and apply it to your campaign…that’s doesn’t work. This ad does not work to sell what Samsung is trying to sell, and that is their first mistake…they tried to sell something in a viral video.
At the time of this posting it’s at 991K views. Like a camera spec that’s an easy number to sell to potential clients.
But does it mean anything? Will it sell drives?
As much as I find Laina adorable and cute… she’s not doing anything that’s unique. She’s not trying to sing well… she’s not really delivering a great performance…
She seems to be having a good time with her “accidenatal fame” but I don’t see her harnessing it for the long term.