This week’s Viral Friday #1 position goes to Drunk Pole Dancing Gone Wrong. Heineken scores a big hit this week with a viral for their global responsible drinking campaign Know The Signs. The runner up spot is for Face-Off With A Deadly Predator. Paul Nicklen is a photographer for National Geographic who came face-to-face with one of Antarctica’s most vicious predators. Pigeon: Impossible completes this week’s top 3. After nearly 5 years, writer and director Lucas Martell is finally done with this first attempt at animation.

Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 5? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!

Get our ViralBlog asset: the Viral Friday Widget! By default the widget shows you the latest Viral Friday, but it’ll also show you the seven most recent postings on ViralBlog.

1. Drunk Pole Dancing Gone Wrong

Heineken scores a big hit this week with its global responsible drinking campaign Know The Signs. The campaigns includes the above video in which a wedding is ruined by a drunk girl. Starting last Monday the video spread rapidly around the web leading to over 2 million views in just four days and an appearance in MSNBC’s ZeitGeist show. All videos used for the campaign can be found in the Know The Signs YouTube channel. Read more about the campaign in Nicole’s post from last Wednesday.

2. Face-Off With A Deadly Predator

Paul Nicklen is a photographer for National Geographic, making the most amazing books, like his most recent “Polar Obsession“. For another project Paul wanted to get in the water with the Leopard Seal, the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic. In this video Paul tells about his experience when he came face-to-face with one of Antarctica’s most vicious predators. The video got over 1 million views since November 12 and got posted on sites like The Huffington Post, Boing Boing and Gizmodo.

3. Pigeon: Impossible

After nearly 5 years, writer and director Lucas Martell is finally done with this first attempt at animation. The result is the Pixar-quality 6-minute short “Pigion: Impossible” about Walter Beckett, a junior CIA agent, who receives a briefcase that controls a nuclear missile. The hand-off goes smoothly, until a pigeon gets trapped inside. Amazing visuals and a good soundtrack show the work of nearly one-hundred talented artists and musicians, be sure to check out how they did it. The video generated more than 780,000 in 12 days.

4. Space Chair Project

Though it looks quite simple to hoist up a chair into the sky using a helium balloon, this video has lots of awesome aspects to it. Everything was shot using Toshiba HD cameras. Toshiba and Grey London wanted to show that with the new Toshiba LCD TV you can get better armchair viewing with sharp images. The chair was lifted into the air up to 98,268 feet (almost 30 kilometers). They broke the record of the highest commercial ever filmed. Look here and here for more awesomeness, the making of and to see why this video got 405,855 views since last Monday.

5. Microsoft Store Breaks Out Into Song

This week Microsoft launched a viral video. In Microsoft’s recently opened Mission Viejo Store, employers burst into ’spontaneous’ dancing to the Black Eyed Peas. In the blogosphere the opinions on the video differentiate, but the words awkward, embarrassing and cheesy stand out. Watch the video and be your own judge… After only four days on YouTube the video got 496.847 views. So despite of, or thanks to, all the comments, the video is viral.

The “Home & Office” version of the Powermat

Vernon reviewed the Powermat, and in return we offered him ViralBlog as a platform to share his opinions on the Powermat. Continue reading for his review.

A few weeks ago I was approached by the very kind people from Powermat to review their home/office version of their wireless charging product. I already heard about the technology of wireless inductive charging, but never used it other than charging my toothbrush.

The Powermat Home & Office Mat comes in two parts (the mat itself and a receiver unit for your device) and wirelessly charges up to 3 devices simultaneously by placing a device with a Powermat receiver onto the mat.

Currently a Powermat receiver can be attached to the back of an iPhone, Nintendo DS and a Blackberry. If you want to charge your other gear, you’ll need to buy the Powemat Powercube that sits on top of the mat and connects to your gadget via USB charger.

If you just carry one device something like the Powermat probably wouldn’t appeal to you. However, if you a person who carries multiple electronics or live in a house with more than one cell phone, the Powermat is pretty much a no-brainer.

There also is a foldable, portable charging mat, perfect for travel. It folds for ultra-compact storage and works with all Powermat receivers.

The portable Powermat

After the success of last year’s Enjoy Heineken Responsibly campaign, Heineken continues to talk about the signs people start to show when they’ve had one too many. The user is provided with tools through which they can show their friends something about self-awareness on a night out. With the iPhone “Breathalyzer” and the social network application ‘Tag of Shame’ Heineken is enabling a conversation between friends.

To create an intriguing message around the launch of the campaign, three videos have been created which show how, if you don’t know the signs, you can end ruining the night for you, your friends and others. The videos provide a confronting introduction to the campaign concept and a few of its characters, The Flirt, The Stumbler and The Fighter.

One of the videos ‘The Flirt’ has started to create a lot of rumour already and was even discussed at MSNBC.com

Here you can see what might happen if one of your wedding guests has one too many to drink and crashes at a wedding.

The videos are being tracked by ViralTracker. ViralTracker shows that the videos have reached over 750,000 views within one week and more than 260 comments. Hopefully these large numbers will contribute to an interactive responsible drinking message. With these videos and tools, the users can explore the impact ‘one too many to drink’ can have on people around them. It also gives Heineken the opportunity to actively communicate a responsible drinking message.

Credits
Campaign:
Concept & Creation: Ruby Agency
Production: Unit9

Social Media Optimisation:
SocialMedia8 and ViralTracker

Social network app:
Concept: Ruby Agency
Production: Tamba

iPhone app:
Concept & Design: Ruby Agency
Production: Golden Gekko

Want to know more? Visit the campaign’s Buzz Toolkit.

Let us know how you rate this campaign?

It looks like a string of online commercials, or webisode. And I know their are not very new, but I felt you should be able to see them here. Maybe just to prove (again) that even mortgage companies can bring relevant online content, wrapped in a very pleasant and entertaining way.

What video out of the above 5 did you like most? And if you do happen to bump into great new viral commercials, you are invited to share them with us…

Players can build an endless racing track by connecting their iPhones via Bluetooth and driving a car from iPhone to iPhone.

The Endless racing game movie was preceded by a short movie demonstrating the free iPhone racing app.

The campaign was created by Dutch agency Novocortex and I was informed the results are positive with over 160.000 views and great responses.

Elf Yourself elves invade Union Square

Read more about Elf Yourself? See “Will Elf Yourself Return in 2009? YES!” (a retrospective) and “Elf Yourself 2009 is Live!” (focus on 2009 campaign). Read more about Flash mobs? Check out the article “Using A Creative Flashmob As A Viral Element” by Matthijs Roumen or do a ViralBlog search or YouTube search.

ElfYourself Flash Mob Rehearsal

Click here to view the embedded video.
The video doesn’t show exactly “how” to measure the ROI in Social Media, but is great for you marketers out there who believe that Social Media is just a ‘nice to have’.

See some examples and data which could be very interesting to you…

1.  Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook and roughly a 1/3 of these are small businesses.

2.  Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media.

3.  Lenovo was able to achieve cost savings by a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to community website for answers.

4.  BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube.

5.  Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter

6. Obama Social Media Marketiong resulted in three million online donors contributing $500 million in fundraising.

7. 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It

Source: Socialnomics.net

ADVERTORIAL

This week’s Viral Friday #1 position goes to Elizabeth Lambert. Fist throwing football player Elizabeth Lambert is the number 1 of Viral Friday’s top 5. The different videos showing her mean actions towards the opponent players all add up to more than 10,2 million views. The runner up spot is for Andre Iguodala Trick Shot. Trick shot videos are a guarantee for lots of views and comments. And although we have seen many of these videos, they’re always interesting to watch and see if you can figure out if it’s real or fake. Remi Gaillard: Tarzan completes this week’s top 3. We have seen him before in Viral Friday: the French Remi Gaillard, professional prankster.

Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 5? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!

Get our ViralBlog asset: the Viral Friday Widget! By default the widget shows you the latest Viral Friday, but it’ll also show you the seven most recent postings on ViralBlog.

1. Elizabeth Lambert

Fist throwing football player Elizabeth Lambert is the number 1 of Viral Friday’s top 5. The different videos showing her mean actions towards the opponent players all add up to more than 10,2 million views on YouTube. Although some outbursts could be justified as a retaliation for the opponents’ behavior, the severity is outrageous. Unfortunately the referee didn’t catch all the mishaps and Lambert only got one yellow card at the time. Now, she has been suspended indefinitely. And in the end, her team New Mexico Lobos didn’t even win the match…

2. Andre Iguodala Trick Shot

Trick shot videos are a guarantee for lots of views and comments. And although we have seen many of these videos, they’re always interesting to watch and see if you can figure out if it’s real or fake. In this one 25 year old basketball player Andre “Iggy” Iguodala performs the shot. Iggy plays for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, and this video is uploaded in the NBA YouTube channel. No URLs to click to, just some extra online exposure for Iggy and the NBA with close to a million views since November 4. So, real or fake? Although the ball leaves the picture for a moment (a lot can happen there!) I’d say it’s real.

3. Remi Gaillard: Tarzan

We have seen him before in Viral Friday: the French Remi Gaillard, professional prankster. With his catch phrase “C’est en faisant n’importe quoi qu’on devient n’importe qui” Remi likes to have fun and he acquired fame by placing his funny video on YouTube. In this latest video, which has almost 830,000 views since November 4, Remi Gaillard and his friends invaded the Amazon greenhouse in Montpellier.

4. Verizon: Misfit Toys

This is Verizon’s latest attack on iPhone and AT&T and it is pretty funny. Verizon are continuing to roll out ads like “map for that“, this time with three new ads. The standout is this re-creation of the “Island of Misfit Toys” scene from the 1964 Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated Christmas television special, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer“. This new ad shows the land of misfit toys where an iPhone-looking device is banished for its poor AT&T 3G coverage. The video generated more than 360,000 views in 7 days.

5. Five Years Of Firefox

Last Monday, November 9, it was five years ago that Mozilla launched Firefox 1.0. Five years after launch, Firefox has made a name for itself and earned a reputable position as the number two browser in the world. The above video tells the story of five years Firefox. On a special anniversary website Firefox calls upon its users to join the Firefox communities on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr (remember to tag all you do with “Firefox5“). The video got over 100,000 views since November 8.

The video shows Lambert being extremely unsports(wo)manlike to her opponents.

The content of the video is not very spectacular:  we’ve all seen football players and other athletes behaving badly on the field. But somehow this video stood out, reaching a million views in just a few days. Now it has reached viral status and more than 10.2 million views according to Mashable. The views are spread over the different versions of the video going around.
It’s said that maybe the fact that Lambert is a woman is what makes her actions worth watching. Men do it all the time, but women don’t and that’s what makes it more interesting. To me watching it is more like the car crash comparison: you’re shocked by what you are seeing but it’s to spectacular to look away.
Among the more than 20,000 comments on the video you can find a lot of people cheering Lambert on, disapproving of her behavior and reasoning that her behavior is equal to that of men on the field. But only a few alert viewers also noticed that Lambert is not being mean for no reason. In both cases her opponent starts the rumble, evoking revenge in Lambert. Still I think that her retaliation is unprofessional.
Lambert has been suspended indefinitely for her behavior.

ViralTracker offered to give some insights on this viral. See more information after the jump.

The clip is a nice compilation of YouTube hits, acted out by the Com Hem characters Judit & Judit. They feature hits like Star Wars-kid, Afro Ninja, Dramatic Chipmunk, Bad day at the office, Leave Britney alone as well as some local ones. For people “in the know”, the music at the end is also from a true viral hit – keyboard cat. The clip was made by agency King with the communications agency JMW.

This video has been a great success, especially the Swedish version, which got more than 27,000 views the first day. A user created video comparing the Judit & Judit video with the originals side by side has also gotten 45,000 views. Don’t miss it! There you really see how well made it is.

On YouTube the video has more than 3000 ratings with an average on 4.87. Furthermore it has a lot of positive feedback including: “Absolutely hilarious!! Love how all the famous internet memes are incorporated here… 5 stars for sure :)”

Besides the video, a site where users can post and vote on their own favourite internet memes has been launched. There is a competition where the 40 people who post the most favourited memes will get a 100 Mbit/s broadband connection for a year.

Below you see the tracking results so far from ViralTracker.