Viral Marketing: Weezer Gets it Right
Posted by Tamar Weinberg on May 28th, 2008
In one of the most brilliant marketing moves of all time from a social media perspective, alternative rock band Weezer created an awesome video for their new single, “Pork and Beans,” using internet superstars from a handful of successful YouTube videos. Here’s a look at their amazing creation:
These are all the original YouTube stars. All Weezer did was bring them together to create a revolutionary video that should change the way you think about your marketing approach. Included in this video is Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain fame, the Blendtec’s famous “Will it Blend” blender (can you spot it?), Miss Teen South Carolina, the kid behind the famous Romanian Numa Numa video, All Your Base are Belong to Us, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, the “stupid” ninja guy, and a guy who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for wearing the most t-shirts at any time, among many other internet celebrities. (If you didn’t know about any of these memes, you need to venture out farther and scope out your territory.)
It’s simple, really. Take something that’s already popular — in this case, a bunch of internet memes that caught on virally by themselves — and combine the most memorable parts to reach your target audience. The video has been posted to YouTube numerous times since May 23rd and has already seen over 4 million views. Plus, the song has been in my head for the last 3 days. 
Weezer shows that they understand the community of addicted internet users. This video is already spreading like wildfire.
All you need is a bit of creativity and the willpower to make it happen.
The takeaways are simple: look at who you’re targeting, review what they find interesting, and be inventive.
35 Responses to “Viral Marketing: Weezer Gets it Right”
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Weezer Mashes Up the Most Popular Viral Videos with “Pork and Beans” « Social Media Meanderings Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am[...] new video “Porkand Beans”. It is like viral video’s greatest hits. This blog on Technipedia lists a who’s who of the viral video world. “Included in this video is Tay Zonday of [...]
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Around the Web in Blogging | BlogOnExpo Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm[...] In one of the most brilliant marketing moves of all time from a social media perspective, alternative rock band Weezer created an awesome video for their new single, “Pork and Beans,� using internet superstars from a handful of successful YouTube videos. - Techipedia [...]
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Weezer - Pork and Beans (Video With Internet Meme Stars) | Music: Just Another Social Profile Really Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 1:46 pm[...] awesome and, as Tamar points out, also a very clever bit of marketing as people like me just can’t stop blogging it, driving [...]
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All Your Viral Music Promotion Are Belong To Us Says:
May 30th, 2008 at 4:44 am[...] latest video displays a remarkable understanding of social media. They have composited some of the biggest YouTube stars into their latest single in a very amusing way; featured are the stupid ninja, Miss Teen South [...]
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Viral Marketing Video-An Excellent Example | Viral Marketing Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 8:34 pm[...] Viral Marketing: Weezer Gets it Right [...]
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Best.Video.Ever. Internet Viral Video MashUp from Weezer! | Chris Hooley's -ThinkBait- Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm[...] Now, from one stinkin’ video, they have convereted me into a huge fan. Those of you who are as web geeeky as I am will absolutely love this video. And without further ado, and a few weeks behind the curve, I [...]
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Weezer Viral Video | Andy Pulman Edublog Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 10:09 am[...] View Link [...]
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Social Media Made Street Artist Famous Says:
July 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm[...] Understand the community - Techipedia Tamar Weinberg [...]
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A Recap of my 1st Wonderful Year using StumbleUpon | Social Desire Says:
August 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am[...] Tamar with the help of Weezer shows me a thing or two about Viral Marketing. [...]
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On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 4 people and commented on 2 times show
Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and blogs for numerous online publications, most notably Lifehacker, Search Engine Roundtable, and Mashable.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Loved the video. But most important was they still had the Big W at the end, regardless if it was a stream of soda.
May 28th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Man, that was fun. The kitchen sink of YouTube memes.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Dude! We talked about (marketing) doing it right on Social Blend in our early episodes and this video is exactly what you and I were talking about! Excellent post!
May 29th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Love Weezer, and this paticular vid tickled me because of the use of the real internet stars.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:52 am
To bad that this is not an original idea.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:28 am
So I asked Mihai what he meant, and he said that he’s seen a collection of memes on the Internet before.
That’s all well and good, but the difference here is tremendous. Weezer actually brought in the actors from all popular memes and put them in one room to record that video. They didn’t just mash up a bunch of internet meme videos. They made it their own and personalized it with their own song. That’s a lot more original than taking the best videos and remixing it as your own, wouldn’t you say?
May 30th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Bummer, the video has been taken down. Anyone have a link to it anywhere else?
May 30th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
You sure, Ben? I just got to it without a problem.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
What’s funny is that Barenaked Ladies did the exact same thing over a year ago with their song, “Sound of Your Voice”.
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Seems like Techipedia got viral marketing right. Before I even realized it, I sent this to my girlfriend, sister and a bunch of other friends. (Then again, Weezer is one of my all time-favorites.) Awesome post.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Kelly, do you have a link?
June 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am
This is a great idea and we’re certainly not surprised that Weezer was the one to implement it!
June 6th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Wasn’t sure if I should put it in there.
Sorry about that!
Here’s the link to BNL’s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoFMRXlNJ6Y
It was the first thing I thought about when I read about Weezer’s video. The difference is that BNL had people do it like they naturally do their videos. And Weezer had the people in their video.
If that makes any sense. Same formula, different execution. Kinda.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I’m glad afro ninja is getting some work.
June 8th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
kind of cool, made me laugh a couple times, but south park already basically did this.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Hello Tamar,
You’ve got a great enthusiasm for your topic, which is why I decided to review your blog on DoYouDiggIt.com. Please stop in and take a look!
http://www.doyoudiggit.com/technology/tips-for-all-things-tech-at-techipedia
You’ll find a Digg button at the bottom (which I’m sure a tech geek like you will have no trouble using:) ). Feel free to give yoruself a Digg!
June 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Tamar,
To the extent that Weezer and Universal don’t have embedd codes on the music video, no link to another video, and delete the content when other folks post it (ie the link above is now dead)…I think they still have some learning to do.
Great post, however.
Take care,
Nathan
June 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Yeah, that was super dumb. The URL is still there, but embedding was disabled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI
I think they should realize that they got social media right until they removed embedding.
June 15th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I don’t agree that this is one of the most brilliant marketing moves of all time from a social media perspective. I think by making a comment like that you’re implying that all music videos are merely devices for marketing music.
To me, this video feels more like a celebration of internet memes, the people behind them, and the impact social media & social media marketing has had on our lives, rather than an explicit attempt to leverage its success and market a band.
I don’t think it’s a brilliant marketing move and I don’t think assumptions about its marketing performance from a social media perspective are necessarily acurate. However, simply saying ‘you’re wrong, I’m right’ isn’t constructive and it’s not what I’m trying to do.
What I do think, is that this video raises important questions — like whether or not we know we’re being marketed to; and how successful a marketing campaign can be if it doesn’t tie in to the product or branding or encourage us to take some form of action.
I guess what I’m trying to say is just because a bird looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck… it isn’t always a duck.
June 15th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
“I don’t think it’s a brilliant marketing move and I don’t think assumptions about its marketing performance from a social media perspective are necessarily acurate.”
You say PO-tay-to, I say PO-TOT-o. It’s a matter of opinion and that’s what this piece was trying to convey. I personally found that it was brilliant from a social media perspective (my own). You’re entitled to disagree. You’re allowed
And perhaps their intentions weren’t marketing at all, but I still personally think it was very-well thought out and worked in the marketing sphere.
Personally, I also feel that the best products market themselves. In other words, this video wasn’t a marketing campaign, but it worked well as one after social media aficionados and marketers viewed this as such.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
You looked quite pissed on the no-embed issue today.
Never mind them, the music industry always tries to go a step further into selling less cd’s.
June 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
It’s disappointing, Gusma. I don’t understand the rationale and all I want to do is get my 15 minutes of fame doing the same thing those Internet stars did
All in all, though, it kind of sucks. Hopefully since they seemed to have been receptive to YouTube videos in the past, maybe they’ll be receptive to my little video. After all, my blog post does look silly now that it lacks the video I spoke about.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hahah but to gain real internet momentum you should have taped it with a red clownlike nose. But if you think about it most bands still don’t truly understand the net. (Should you expect it too from their labels, no matter how big?)
Don’t look at me, I have weezer’s pat on twitter.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Wow, they listened. Thanks guys!
June 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
It is great video and nice music. It must have big sucess.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Wow, they retracted their decision…again.