Have corporate-sponsored Internet pranks gone too far?

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Things Are Not What They Stream
Have corporate-sponsored Internet pranks gone too far?

Late in May, a public-relations company based in Paris created some user accounts on YouTube and posted four short videos. The clips had been produced by a professional advertising studio to look thoroughly homemade–shaky camera, unscripted-sounding dialogue, no corporate logos or overt marketing pitches. In each one, several young friends gather around a table and aim the antennas of their cell phones at a few kernels of popcorn. The kids dial the phones, and when they ring, the popcorn begins to pop. The friends—in different versions, they're American, Japanese, French, and English—explode into shock and laughter, and just then the videos cut off.

The clips were an instant hit. Within two weeks, they'd been seen 10 million times. Fear was a primary motivation: Many viewers took the videos as evidence supporting long-standing concerns over the health dangers posed by cell-phone radiation. If phones do that to popcorn, imagine what they do to your brain! But on June 12, a wireless headset manufacturer called Cardo Systems announced that it had commissioned the videos (and added the pop-up ads you now see on the clips). Special effects, not cell phones, had popped the popcorn. CEO Abraham Glezerman told CNN that the company had never meant to scare people into buying more headsets—which some neurosurgeons recommend to reduce exposure to cell-phone radiation. Rather, Cardo just wanted to convince viewers to send the clips to their friends. He insisted, "The truth is that it was funny!"

Ha, ha, ha. These days the Web brims with opportunities for such chuckles. "Stealth viral" video ads—i.e., clips that betray few obvious signs that they're part of a campaign—have invaded the Internet. You may think you've just seen a ball girl at a minor-league baseball game scale a wall to catch a foul. Wrong: She's a stunt woman, and that's a Gatorade ad. Did you recently send your friends that kick-ass security-cam clip of an office worker going berserk? If so, you took part in director Timur Bekmambetov's bizarre stealth advertisement for his film Wanted. Ray-Ban, Levi's, Nike, and other brands have also recently launched similar campaigns.

http://www.slate.com/id/2195687/?GT1=38001