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This article is breaking the internet, killing it and going viral

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Abhishek Sikhwal
Abhishek SikhwalMar 22, 2016 | 13:04

This article is breaking the internet, killing it and going viral

As I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed last week, something caught my eye. It was a Huffington Post article that declared an ad for the new Skoda Superb car as "breaking the internet". The ad features a Bruce Lee look-alike (Abbas Alizada) and is "shot underwater with seven divers". The ad, in itself, is decently produced (even though it owes more to the film Snatch than Bruce Lee) but I do have an axe to grind with the Huffington Post article discussing it.

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You see, it was only after I clicked on the Huffington Post article that I noticed that it was actually sponsored by Skoda. Hmmmm. The company that produced an ad for their car is sponsoring an article that declares its own production as breaking the internet. Did no one point it out to them that this may be construed as a conflict of interest? There is a similarly sycophantic MensXp article that sings praises of the ad while listing Skoda as a partner brand. It's a new low even by advertising standards.

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Courtesy: Internet/HuffPost

What exactly is a conflict of interest? Well, like I explained to my Ola driver last night, a conflict of interest arises when there is a clash between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a company or person. There is conflict of interest when Amit Chaudhuri calls his own student's novel an "exceptional, unexpected work". It's like that psytrance DJ acquaintance guy who keeps handing you his baffling CDs with the promise that "this one is bomb, bro. Trust me."

Hmmmm

The mere fact that the folks at Skoda would choose to pat their own backs on social media is indicative of a marketing trend that has been plaguing the interwebs for quite some time. Corporations have always wanted to shun their Goliath image by pandering to the Davids. They spend millions on cootchie-coo adverts that attempt to make them appear normal and "with it". The end result is almost always like a robot mimicking a human - "HELLO! WE ARE JUST LIKE YOU!" - because these campaigns are based on statistics and target-groups and market-research. Coca-Cola's new 'Taste the feeling' ad is so mushy that it could make Hindu cows weep or make Don Draper jump off a cliff.

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Viral content is organic in its randomness. In our attention-deficit times, there is something almost holy about someone wanting to share something with someone. Whether the content in question is a CID joke or a political op-ed or a silly Vine video, people taking a second to share and pass the content onto their social network is what makes something go viral.

This unprocessed system works on votes of confidence and keeps the collective amused and informed and ticking. Viral content make us smile precisely because of their spontaneity and unpredictability. The fact that in this rich tapestry of events that we call life there can be something as beautifully random as a guilty dog, biting babies or Taher Shah makes it a much richer experience. Compared to the aforementioned videos, most viral marketing ads are about as natural as a "leaked" celebrity sex tape.  

Speaking of celebrity sex tapes, Kim Kardashian's butt was recently on the cover of Paper magazine and made a rather self-aggrandising announcement that it would break the internet. The people who bought the Paper issue are the same optimistic idiots who buy Maxim or follow Poonam Pandey on Instagram.

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Did the clickbait Kardashian cover break the internet? Of course it did. People clicked on the link simply to see what about it was breaking the internet. Their curiosity made them complicit in "breaking the internet".   

Advertising firms around the world are quickly learning that the public can be easily manipulated by using the power of suggestibility. They obsess about going viral because of course they want to take something organic and squeeze the last drop of purity out of it. They need to realise that when their content is carefully manufactured by a team of Bandra hipsters, it becomes a lab-grown viral infection.

For the purpose of this article, I have seen each of these corporate flashmob videos and don't think I can hug anyone again. I can totally imagine some whippersnapper suggest a flashmob video to his boss:

"Sir, I promise you ki total staff motivation will be achieved."

"How?"

"Sir, research has shown that if you make your employees dance to Jai Ho or Tune Maari Entriyaan in our office cafeteria then there is 82 per cent chance of going viral."

"Viral meaning?"

"Sir, everyone will be watching it on YouTube and sharing it everywhere. Free mein advertising ho jayega. Young people will see the video and think that our company is fun and happening. Perverts everywhere will get to see the unusual dancing of Sakshi from Accounts."

"What if it doesn't go viral?"

"Sir, it will be shared more than a doctored JNU video. Mummy ki kasam. We will run sponsored articles declaring our video as breaking the internet. BuzzFeed will run a listicle titled '17 things every BPO employee will experience' or whatever and feature our video. "

"But what if our video isn't good in the first place?"  

"Sir, like Poonam Pandey and Narendra Modi, our job is to promise not deliver."

(Disclaimer: DailyO is part of the India Today Group, a multimedia news organisation.)

Last updated: March 22, 2016 | 17:35
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