Pepsi fails miserably at viral marketing attempt

Corporations are always trying to figure out to take advantage of the power of online viral buzz. They see regular folks posting random videos of themselves or others and watch the Youtube hits skyrocket into the millions with little effort. For some reason though, when a corporation tries it, it often falls flat on its face. The reason is this: for a video to become a viral hit, it usually has to be genuine and not staged, like the kid who was stoned after his visit to the dentist. They didn't tell the kid to act woozy and pretend like he just juiced up at the dentist office - he really was doped up and was not playing it up for the camera with dreams of becoming an internet sensation. That's why it was loved by many, and that's why it fails miserably when corporations try to get it on the act.

The latest attempt comes from Pepsi, in their efforts to get the word out about Pepsi Max. The premise is this: professional NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon disguises himself and plays the role of a guy who doesn't know much about cars but is looking for a new ride. He and the car salesman meet outside and they decide to test drive a new Chevy Camaro. At first Jeff Gordon acts like he barely knows how to drive - doing the "stop/start" routine that 15 year-olds do when they drive their parent's car for the first time. He then lets loose and takes off like a lunatic, racing around the dealership, making maneuvers only a skilled driver could pull off, almost giving the car salesman a heart attack. 


This would have been quite a hoot, except for the fact that it was completely staged. And not staged well. The car salesman, if he even was a real car salesman, was clearly in on it and the dialogue was obviously scripted. Somehow Pepsi had something to do with this - oh yeah, that's the hidden cam. The Pepsi can cam. But why do you need a hidden cam when everyone involved is getting paid to produce a viral ad?

What annoys us the most about these types of stunts is that they're actually good ideas most of the time. Why didn't they just do it for real? The genuineness of the salesman would have really shown through and it would have been extremely entertaining and viral. Instead, we get this fake, staged, watered down pathetic attempt at creating buzz which should be embarrassing for everyone involved. 

Evidently it did fool one poor soul though, Chris Chase from the USA Today Sports section. He wrote of the "success" of the marketing stunt and took it on face value as being real. After readers pointed out to him that the stunt was completely staged, he added:

I've been recently told I'm a wet blanket when it comes to evaluating the legitimacy of viral videos, so I'll keep my opinions about this one to myself. 

Either way, the salesman should have been suspicious when "Mike" put an unopened Pepsi Max in the cup holder. That's always a sign things are about to get nuts.

Barf! If that guy isn't on the Pepsi pay roll already, he should be. 

Adam Carolla asks simple questions on race and poverty, gets slammed for it

We have the right to free speech in the United States, but there are just some things you aren't supposed to talk about. Or question. Race is one of them. We're all supposed to pretend we don't notice if someone is black or white, or Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. With all the hush-hush on the topic, you'd think race was something we were supposed to be ashamed of. Why do we pretend it doesn't exist? Why are we all fooling ourselves? And why do we all jump on someone the moment they break the rules and dare ask questions about it? Isn't it getting a bit silly?

The latest person to step on the race landmine is Adam Carolla, podcaster and former co-host of Love Line and The Man Show. Carolla is now getting crucified after a recent podcast which featured guest Gavin Newsom, a former San Fransisco mayor. The incident began after Newsom started talking about poverty and mentioned the fact that many Blacks and Hispanics don't have access to checking accounts and ATMs. Carolla then asked what was wrong with them? What is it about Blacks and Hispanics that prevents them from having access to checking accounts like the rest of us do? Are they flawed? Newsom responded by saying that there were many reasons but he didn't want to get into a sociological discussion.

Listen to the exchange below:
If you listen to the rest of the exchange, you'll learn that Carolla's point is that those who do well are those whose focus is the family, a good education, and hard work, while those who don't are the opposite. There seems to be an almost unanimous view in the country that blacks are at the bottom rung still because of their origins in slavery. The argument is that they're still catching up as a result of that and we should all just be patient and sooner or later their school performance and employment rates will improve.

What goes against this argument is this: slavery was abolished in 1865, while the Japanese were put in internment camps in 1942 and Jews were killed by the millions in the 1940s as well. Are the Japanese still struggling the survive? Are Jews experiencing high unemployment and dropout rates? And whatever your reasoning happens to be for the state of affairs in the United States, what about for the rest of the world where conditions are different yet similar problems exist?

As you can see, there appear to be some holes in the status quo reasoning. Most people seem to realize that somewhere there is a fault in the logic, but anyone who dares to question it gets crucified in a heartbeat. We're not allowed to discuss race. We're not allowed to acknowledge discrepancies. Keep your head in the sand and hopefully it'll all work itself out. How's that been working out for us?

Two Corvette owners compete to see who has the smallest pecker

It's the age old contest where grown children attempt to demonstrate their manliness by showing everyone they can put their foot down on a gas pedal. No you guys don't understand, it takes some real ankle strength to do that!



The result is pretty obvious but still hilarious. It's just too bad the camera guy didn't keep rolling, he really missed the best part where the guys got out of their cars and compared penis sizes. I guess we'll never know who really won, but our hunch is the one on the right who seemed to be overcompensating just a hair more.