Smoking Smarties and the Return of Long-Tail

A bit like the diliquent younger brother of the Mentos and Diet Coke virals that came before, there is a new candy stunt in town: Smoking Smarties!

Now, for most, the response to this video (and many other like it) is to either comment on how brands struggle to control their own image in the digital age or how scandelous it is for young children to be emulating smoking.

For me, the most interesting this about this sudden phenomenon is how long it’s actually been around:

Kids have been hip to the phenomenon for quite some time, apparently. Along with the dozens of how-to videos on YouTube, there are many MySpace mentions, a Facebook support group for “all you who are addicted to smoking Smarties,” and countless bulletin boards and chat rooms full of smoking-Smarties confessions. (via)

One of the really cool and uncontrollable elements of the internet is that once something is out there it can sometimes lay dormant for weeks or even years before getting noticed, linked, dug and suddenly it’s the new hot thing.

This is ye ol’ “long-tail effect” that was so the rage for a while.  The thing is, the long-tail is real but it is completely impossible to predict or rely upon its behavior.

Diet Coke Style Series Coming This Week – A Question of Promotion

Was reading over on TubeFilter about a pretty high-end webseries being sponsored by Coca Cola as a platform to push Diet Coke.

This is not a bad idea on paper.  One might ask what they will offer on their show that I can’t find in a zillion other places but if it is done well and they are able to consistently book big guests (currently Rhianna and Cynthia Rowley are on the debut) it has some small chance.

Of course, will all things web, the big question is how to get noticed.  Coke is taking a very “safe” approach:

“Following the top down strategy of old-fashioned marketing campaigns, the unimaginative Style Series will be heavily publicized and distributed by New York-based Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG), which will promote the show through online video banners on entertainment and lifestyle focused websites across the DBG Video Network, People.com, InStyle.com and Yahoo, newsletters, mobile TV pre-roll spots, WAP banners, and outdoor digital billboards in Times Square. There’s no mention of any social media integration, and there doesn’t seem to be anything on YouTube.”

TubeFilter seems to feel that Coke’s choice is way too conservative and misses out on pulling in establishing web personalities to help prosthyletize on their behalf.  While I usually side with the underdog in these matters, I wonder if TubeFilter is off the mark here.

Coke is going after a very traditional demo with this series, hoping to draw a lot of the same people who might watch this show if it were on TV. These are not they kinds of people the hip, hot, web-personality elite tend to reach – and the people they do reach aren’t the type that would ever watch this show.

By using a much more traditional marketing approach, similar to how one might launch an actual TV series, I think Coke is at least giving the show a chance to be discovered.

Now, how long they will be able to keep marketing and whether or not first-time viewers keep coming back, are bigger questions that only time will answer, but I don’t think they’ve shot themselves in the foot by ignoring the Ze Franks of the world.