Posted on May 24, 2008
Weezer Harnesses the Power of The Internets
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Yesterday, Weezer posted the official video for "Pork and Beans", the first single from their new self-titled Red Album that gets released early next month. The video is already featured on the front page of Youtube, and as of yesterday at 5pm PDT, it has already garnered over 500,000 views.
The song is catchy and awesome in the way that you'd expect if you're a Weezer fan, and the video also delivers. Put quite simply, it's brilliant. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but not only is the idea excellent, but it was executed flawlessly. The video incorporates dozens of characters and people that have been popular on Youtube--the Numa Numa guy (over 1 million views), the Star Wars Kid (over 7 million views), Chris Crocker (Leave Britney Alone has garnered more than 22 million hits), Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain (viewed over 22 million times) fame, the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment, Miss Teen South Carolina's confusing answer, the dramatic groundhog, the evolution of dance, girls dancing to a Daft Punk song, and those are just some of the ones that have a prominent feature in the video! There are many many others that appear quickly or in the background such as the Will it Blend series, Charle the Unicorn, and peanut butter jelly time. These videos constitute millions of views, so Pork and Beans appeals to anyone who has seen even a few of these massively popular clips. The way Weezer incorporated the dozens of different popular videos is amazing, and I cant' even tell you how many times I've watched it today, to try and find all the little details I may have missed!
This video was masterfully done, which means that they had to take a lot of time, effort, and money to pull this off. They also had to reach out and contact the many Youtube artists who appear in the video, although I'm guessing that most of them jumped at the chance to appear on something that would gain such wide exposure, and a music video for a well-known band no less! The fact that I've watched this video not once, not twice, but many times is great for the marketers of this video. They've now ensured that I am very familiar with the song--by tapping into the most popular videos on Youtube, they've automatically gained a large target market of people who will love watching this video. Weezer is popular enough that they don't necessarily need to aggressively grow their market, but they are a prime example of how to capture what's popular and make it work for you. The key is to know what's popular and what's next when you see it and to use the right amount of resources to successfully produce a product that will catch on--if this video had been slapped together I don't think I would be nearly as impressed.
