You are a Marketing Manager. Your budget has been cut dramatically. Solution: look for a mechanism to get your "advertisement" shown to as many people as possible, without paying for TV placement.
Enter: video viral marketing. Copy an idea, write a short script, film with actors. Pop onto Youtube, initiate the viral campaign.
The only difference from traditional TV advertising is the cost. Production outlay, and that is about it. ROI: easy: saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV (and potentially radio) advertising. In the case of xxxMan (not going to provide too much juice), nearly 45000 views I would consider as epic fail.
On the face of it, if you present this advertisement as a bit of fun; make it slightly obvious it’s not real. Cool.
But this is not social media. Or positive in a sharing culture. There is no people to people connection between the company and it’s customers. Sure, it may generate both positive and negative comments in YouTube and the internet. The agency may respond and behalf of the customer. This is not social media nor a sharing culture.
People trust and like to speak to people. Put the best people in your organisation up front, and support them.
Viral is not Social, it is just a Virus.
Oh, by the way: Laurel is right on this matter. 🙂