Want a Viral Hit? Go Buy One!

That’s exactly what Stride Gum did when someone on their creative team (read: someone’s kid) pointed out how funny Matt Harding’s “dancing around the world” video was and how popular it had become.

So:

“Mr. Harding first garnered a small internet following several years ago for a traveling rendition of what Midwesterners might call a “farmer’s jig” (pumping elbows, high knees and insistent bouncing). The brand’s promotion agency, GoldNFish, first spotted Mr. Harding in 2005 “when we were looking for a fun way to get the word out about Stride gum,” said Emily Liu, senior brand manager for Stride.

“As huge fans of Matt, we wanted to see if he would take a long trip around the world again,” she said. “So we picked up the phone and asked Matt if he would be interested … and the rest is history.”(via AdAge)

This collaboration has been quite successful for both Matt and Stride.  Matt has gotten to continue to dance around the world free of charge and Stride gets a nice halo effect from this funny, and brand-associative meme.

We’re sure to see more companies trying this tactic.  In fact, current vunder-kid “Fred” is such an example.  We’ll have to wait and see how many times it can be copied successfully.

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