How a small Melbourne production company fooled the world – eight times
A boutique Australian production company has admitted to faking eight of the most talked-about viral videos of the past two years as part of a social experiment. The Woolshed Company spoke with Mumbrella about what it takes to engage global media.
Over the past two years the world watched in shock as people were attacked by sharks and lions, and chased by bears while snowboarding, we watched a Stormtrooper fall down the stairs, a woman almost get struck by lightning and two men ‘fight’ with selfie sticks.
But today a small independent Australian production company The Woolshed has come forward and admitted it is behind eight of the biggest viral hoaxes, which between them have gone viral in over 180 countries and had been viewed a total of 205 million times.
The worldwide coverage also garnered 1.6m likes and 500,000 comments on social media, with the world divided as to the authenticity of the clips.
ahhah good stuff fooled me.
This is awesome. Nice work guys.
Not sure they fooled the world. When most of those videos came out (especially the bear one) anyone with a reasonable intelligence level realised they were fake.
Calling something a ‘social experiment’ when it’s completely fabricated doesn’t really excuse basically lying to create clickbaiting videos. The very reason these went viral was because they are supposed to be real; as opposed to a movie, which you can watch and still enjoy even though you know it’s fake. Not sure what this proves? That’s there’s a market for peddling falsehoods to undiscerning audiences?
Fantastic! Well done guys!
Hope you get billions of $ of new work doing what you love, and clearly can do brilliantly!
Brilliant, luv ’em!
Props to these guys for breaking the ‘viral formula’. Not easy.
That said, the real challenge is designing one of these for a brand that needs to inject a commercial message, without offending, lying or baiting George Lucas’ legal team.
Interesting. It’s certainly a good self-promo piece. I just hope they learnt more than Danger, Kids and animals doing hilarious stuff works. We already knew that.
It remains to be seen whether this is useful for brands. It’s much easier to go viral when your agenda is to go viral, not to promote a product. And a lot harder to dupe news outlets when a brand is featured.
Mighty stuff guys. True genius. Love working with your team
The bear scene in The Revenant was real too. Don’t know why that didn’t go viral.
Brilliant. And a skill worth money. Or at the very least just a cool experiment.
But yes, the real problem for marketers or agencies is doing the above but also making a product the centre of it.
What we see here is half the equation solved.
Most stuff that goes viral is very client unfriendly – crudeness, violence, etc.
It’s double edged sword – put a product in the above and everyone will see its really an ad. The product ruins the entertainment bit. Alternatively it’s very light touch with the product and no one remembers the brand so whats the point?
That’s why the best agency creatives in the world are worth something – take Old Spice, the product is front and centre but you still want to watch it and still want to share it.
Echoing comments above. Most you could suss that they were fake / staged.
The lightning one, to be fair did get me, so good work there.
“we didn’t mean to shame the media”. Take it from me guys, you have everyone’s support to do just that – it’s a fine and noble cause.
One that aktifmag did some years back
http://www.aktifmag.com/the-wo.....viral-hit/
Any one of these provides space for brand opportunity/placement on a teeshirt, fast-food wrapper/drink bottle, car brand, surfer/boarder brands etc. We are so used to seeing logos everywhere we hardly notice them in everyday footage – but they are subtle reinforcements that work on the subconscious.
Viral marketing like this is brilliant, especially challenging people to decide if its real or fake because all the know-it-alls reckon they can tell because they are so clever. The beauty being that they are falling for the marketing trap by participating, and making it go viral.
I absolutely love that.
Next stop, Cannes
Brilliant, well done
Many questioned how does a fake viral video help a brand, it might look like a question of having chicken or egg first, but in fact it’s just about a skill of making things go viral, which unfortunately most of people don’t have.
Have a look at the fake hover car video VW China made in 2012, 8,699,881views and people still talk about now, 4 years later. Such a level of exposure is gold, and it goes back directly to the brand’s intention – rebuilding VW brand to a focus of technology and creativity.
Overall, it’s not really about making fake content, it’s about a rare skill to viralize content, that means, any content.
Well done.