After being a hardcore internet user for the last, oh too long really, I still get a kick out of seeing its power, and its ability to make anything it wants popular. This is a story about a struggling actor, an AT&T commercial and a social media site. It all started on Monday, November 7th when a Reddit user named "Naterden" posted a link with the title "" And that was that, or so an outside observer would think. But Reddit isn't very conventional, and, it has a spontaneity about itself that no one can really judge. Some things go unnoticed, other things can become huge, this happened to be the latter. Within a few hours the AT&T spot was flooded with comments about how much they loved the "Huh?" guy. By the end of the day the video that had previously had less then 1,000 views, spiked to over 750,000.
I really like this story for 2 reasons. The first is because it shows off the power of social media and because I was in on this from the beginning and was one of the first users to help spread the video. And it really is a testament of today's society about how anyone can become a star for 15 minutes. Websites have been reporting on the story, and I'm sure advertisers are scratching their heads wondering why this one? And even though I was part of it in its early stages I can't even say for certain why it happened, but it's always nice to see a struggling actor get some recognition.
I can only imagine that advertisers will try and cash in on this, by posting similar stories in the coming months, but the thing that marketers never seem to understand is that you can't force viral, and in all their attempts in all the years they have never been able to fool the websites that aggregate the viral content of the web. So although they may try, I doubt it will ever be as successful (if at all) as the original "Huh?" guy.
Here's Adweek's take on the story, followed by the commercial itself.
