Hilarious viral videos are nothing new. Hell, Tosh.0 is in its third season of dedicating 30 minutes to lewdly making fun of the people in them. But what about the notoriously hilarious or interesting viral web promotions put together by production companies and advertising agencies all to get you to buy their merchandise, see their film, or play their game? (And no, we simply mean televised commercials.)
With that query unanswered, we’ve put together a list for you of the top ten best Web promos of all time, most of which went to live on or were born altogether on YouTube.
1. “Terrible” Terry Tate “Pain”: Office Linebacker
Reebok went a little nuts in 2003 with web promos surrounding football player, Terry Tate played by Lester Speight. Dubbed “Terrible” Terry Tate: Office Linebacker, the promos revolved around a business known as Felcher & Sons taking control of everyday office faux pas by hiring Terry to tackle, scream at, and threaten such offenders. Infamous quips such as “You kill the joe you make some mo’,” are used by Speight’s character followed by commentary from the asinine CEO, Ron Felcher, on the success of Terry’s influence on productivity at Felcher & Sons. While some of these clips were played on television, all of them were viral on Reebok’s site and the rest of the Web. Have yourself a laugh attack and remember not to steal from the office fridge below:
2. Old Spice Tweets
Another football star, Isaiah Mustafa made a big hit on viral web promotion when he starred in Old Spice commercials as The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. With his David-esque physique, overthetop macho voice, lumberjack hobbies, and the great writers of Old Spice’s ad team, the ridiculous commercials got a lot of attention on television and found a second life on the Internet when the character was used again to live respond to tweets on Twitter. This :44 second concluding tweet response clip has 6.8 million views.
3. Butt laptop – MSI computers
Uploaded to the Internet like any other YouTube sensation, the “Guy Catches Laptop With His Butt” video now has 4 million hits. Featuring college kids in wrestler unitards, MSI laptops are thrown at one of the guys who proceeds to catche them with, well … his butt. But we’re finished ‘cracking’ jokes for you, see the off-color maximus mayhem for yourself:
4. Bros Icing Bros
Text
Okay, so we cheated. Smirnoff never intended to tell customers that their product was too sugary and terrible to want to drink in a normal setting. Still college bros. got it right for YouTube viral when they started sneaking Ice into unsuspected places and making them chug from one knee. Some of the best one were on golf courses, at airport security, weddings, and the list really goes on and on. Check out College Humor’s rendition of the immature trend.
5. Angry Birds Press Conference
Even game developers are getting into the web promo game. Creators of Angry Birds (Serdar, Jaakko, and Peter) recently put together this “on the set” cartoon promo to plug Google Chrome and its ease of use for Web Developers. It might not have viral numbers (340,000), but being it’s inspired by the most downloaded, stupid, addicting, time wasting, cross-platform game on the planet, we figured it belonged on this list. Check it out for yourself:
6. Samsung HD Camera Trick
Samsung appealed to gadget geeks around the world when it used its HD camera phone to film a web ad showing off an elaborate camera trick. Challenging everyone to explain how it was shot brought a lot of specialized attention to the video, making it six on our list.
7. Reddit AMA Bear Grylls
Bear Grylls of Man Vs. Wild (Yes, the guy who eats raw grubs instead of cooked food) recently took to Reddit’s infamous Ask Me Anything (AMA) subreddit to answer dozens of questions live via his website and YouTube. With many videos ranking in 50,000 views a piece, we’d say his presence definitely worked in the Web ratings department. Plus, who doesn’t want to ask the man with the iron stomach why he does the things he does? Hear how his family reacts to his stunts below:
For more fun advertising, see 18 Most Creative Elevator Ads or Magnum Ice Cream Ads
