Pizza Hut has released a new viral campaign via Youtube.
But it’s getting mixed reviews. AdAge has the background, including that it was placed through Zadby for a comparable fee to the $25,000 paid for Wendy’s first viral video.
The video itself on Youtube by MediocreFilms has been seen almost 200,000 times as I write, and 2852 comments and 3807 ratings. Most are positive and it’s got 4.5 stars.
But the style of the video, and almost all the comments, focus on the video as an example of Jackass style comedy. There’s no mention of Pizza Hut in the comments, or in the video itself. (I had to check the Adage link to make sure it actually was related to Pizza Hut).
And it’s also receiving negative comments. I found out about the video via Ian Schafer who writes: ‘Pizza Hut, what the heck were you thinking?
As Ian points out, the Pizza Hut brand is essentially mocking small ‘mom and pop’ pizza joints. Not the best method for promoting a brand which essentially produces a homogenised version of the product and has economies of scale on it’s side already.
It will be interesting to see whether the comments on Youtube would change it someone posted where the video came from – and whether the video does any more for Pizza hut than giving them lots of views of something with no link to them or their product at all.’