Hasta La Creative!

Recently, I watched “ 100 greatest hits of YouTube in 4 minutes,” and afterward, I immediately had three thoughts: 1) Hmm, I hadn’t seen all of those, so maybe I’m not as interweb-urbane as I thought I was; 2) How is it possible that people have watched drivel like a baby biting a toddler’s finger 60 million times? and 3) what can I infer from this swab from pop culture’s cheek as I continue perpetrating advertising? After a few viewings, I came up with seven ideas:

1. Slapstick never gets old. The Three Stooges were doing it since the beginning of Hollywood, but bike crashes, faceplants, jumps, and asking if things will blend, it’s still a great way to get attention. But once you have those eyeballs, you better be selling something relevant, like health care, stunt bike instruction, or table-dancing classes so Scarlet doesn’t take another tumble. We’ve all felt ripped off by the ad that ensnared us with shtick, then slapped us with the shill.

2. Sometimes cheezy is the right ingredient. How many years has Rick Astley been sneaking up on us unawares? Not to mention Snuggies, the late Billy Mays, and other so-wrong-it’s right singers and pitchmen? I’m not saying you have to like it. I’m just saying millions of us can’t help watching it.

3. Pet tricks rule. Sleepwalking dogs, curious cats, loving lions, dramatic chipmunks–whether we’re pet people or not, we love watching furry, fanged, and feathered escapades. eTrade’s chimps Super Bowl spot from a few years back, and the more recent Cadbury Gorilla show how effective a well-placed primate can be.

4. Kids are funny. Novocained out, biting fingers, delivering oddly self-aware monologues to the camera, or, of course, saying bad words. It’s an old device in the persuasion business, but tens of millions of views don’t lie: out of the mouths of babes can come the meme that sweeps the nation.

5. We may not like dancing, but we sure like watching others do it. Suave or stupid, sexy or stumbling, krumpers to presidents, we can’t take our eyes off of folks busting a move. A lot of great ads, like Levi’s “crazy legs” and the Nike soccer and basketball “freestyle” spots, brought this same basic idea to life with impeccable production values.

6. We want to get bowled over by greatness. Paul Potts and Susan Boyle from Britain’s “Got Talent” stand out as recent titans of YouTube, but in a world where many of us don’t do anything more unusual than maxing out on the bench press or keeping kids from killing each other in the back of the car, encounters with the exceptional still stop us in our tracks.

7. Even if you hate pop music, you better keep up with it. If checked YouTube’s most popular yourself, you’ll know that this isn’t really them, it’s “YouTube’s top 100, not including music videos.” If this clip were re-cut to reflect reality, it would sound more like a mish-mash of pop and hip-hop from the last five years; 36 out of the top 50 are professional music videos (I wouldn’t count OK GO), and Michael Jackson is the exception in a crowd of flavor-of-the-month entertainers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the Miley Cyrus/Avril/Jonas Brothers playlist I’ve got on repeat for inspiration.