Lee’s Online Viral Marketing Campaign

This is probably a viral marketing campaign pretending not to be one: “I’m sacking my agency” says Darshan Mehta, CEO of VF Arvind Brands. Supposedly, he didn’t like the work his agency did, so he’s looking for anyone who can come up with a great copy, in return for 17.65% of their media spend on publishing the ad. Not hard cash, though – just merchandise.
He recommends that people go through the virtual showroom (which is useless). The site also features a movie contest that requires a username and password, so there’s profiling of users being done. The movie is downloadable, also in a mobile format. Explore more, and it leads to a page that features products, blogs and forums, among other things. All very subtle, and not being pushed. I’m not sure if I would put up a blog on a Lee site, though.
What’s wrong? Well, the initial ad, the starting point, is placed where it is most likely to target advertising professionals, and I’m wondering if that is Lee’s core demographic? Maybe a youth portal or a social networking site would have been better. Also, most of the site is flash based, so not very searchable. Let’s see if this spreads, though.

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