Viral marketing agency Asa Bailey is behind "The Irish Job" a video created to generate buzz around Lucky Charms, a General Mills brand. The video has been initially seeded to a sample of 250,000 student and 20 something in the United States. The campaign's objective is to build awareness in the target market. Saatchi & Saatchi NY is also in the game.

If it wasn't official before, it is definitely legit now... "Viral" advertising has officially jumped the shark.

Agencies need to realize that the general public is a lot smarter than they are giving them credit for. People don't send blatant advertising to their friends simply because there is a button that allows them to.

No one is going to send this to a friend... why would they? There are no redeeming qualities about this piece - it's nothing more than a traditional TV commercial with "send to a friend" slapped on the end.

For advertising to become "viral", there needs to be a purpose to it - it must have depth beyond "here's an interesting video, send it to a friend".

Posted by: jeremy Bell at August 24, 2005 07:48 PM