By Drew Grant 11/05/12 8:00am

Kickstarter

The logo for Run Free 2013 (Kickstarter)

Run Free 2013: Get All the Glory For Running a Marathon, With None of the Effort!

They say that a new Kickstarter campaign is created every five minutes (or something), and 7 p.m. last night was no exception. As the page for “Run Free 2013” went live, you could watch 26-year-old Kyle Scheele, the director of Ridiculo.us, makes his pitch for why you should donate to the $999 goal* of putting on a global marathon. Sorry, make that a fake global marathon.

” There’s a saying on the internet,” Mr. Scheele began. “Pics or it didn’t happen”.

“In other words, if something is real, if it actually happened, there will be pictures to back that up.

But what if something DIDN’T actually happen, but there are STILL pictures of it? Does that mean it DID happen? If something is fake, how much evidence does it take before it becomes real?

That’s the question we’re trying to answer.

So, on February 2, 2013, we are faking a marathon. “ Read More

By Drew Grant 7/12/12 12:10pm

Viral Marketing

cbs upfronts 3 170512

The Gotham Observer: Batman’s City Gets the Newspaper It Deserves

When picking publications to model your fictitious newspaper on, we obviously have a bias. Still, it’s nice to see that the Warner Bros.’ viral marketing team agreed with us, as their late-June campaign for The Dark Knight Rises included clues to unlock the Gotham Observer, a newspaper that bears resemblance to our own organization in title only.

(We would never lead with a cover story on a ‘Festivity Day’…even if it was in honor of a fallen district attorney. Or if we did, we’d make the led much snappier.)

Read More

By Drew Grant 2/27/12 9:00am

The Academy Awards

Admiral Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) on the red carpet

Red Carpet Dictator: Sacha Baron Cohen Defies Academy ‘Warning,’ Spills Kim Jong Il’s Ashes on Ryan Seacrest at Oscars (Video)

The funniest moment of last night’s almost tearfully boring Academy Awards had nothing to do with Billy Crystal‘s hosting duties, which were apparently ripped from a Catskills comedian back in the 70s. No, the best moment was Sacha Baron Cohen showing up on the red carpet, fully in character as Admiral Aladeen of Wadiya to promote his upcoming movie The Dictator.

This was supposed to be a big deal, since Mr. Baron Cohen, who co-starred in Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo, was allegedly told by the Academy not to promote his movie through some viral marketing stunt on the red carpet. The Borat actor replied earlier last week in the form of a YouTube video and a phone call on Today, then went ahead and showed up as Admiral Aladeen anyway. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/30/12 1:08pm

Viral Marketing

Video

It's a bird, it's a plane! (Well, it is a plane.)

Chronicle Takes Viral Marketing to the Sky with Human Planes (Video)

Manhattanites are a tough bunch; it takes more than topless paparazzi or oddly threatening skywriting to phase them. But after watching this video of three RC planes shaped like humans flying over the city’s bridges we wondered what people thought as they watched people fly through the sky. Were they scared? Jealous? Did they believe that the angels of the rapture descended at last, in the visage of motor-sputtering humans up in the air?

Or were they thinking “What a great ad campaign for that movie about teenagers who can crush cars and stuff with their minds“? Read More