Please do not watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHBTdzsByaA
Just let me tell you that it’s attempting the kind of humor that depends on lucky casting and deft direction combined with a sense of discovery and a certain elusive originality. This web series, sponsored by KFC to promote its KFC Bites, is derivative, labored and never funny. There. That’s my review of it as entertainment (which it offered itself as, so I feel that’s a fair thing for me to do).
One of the characters never says anything much and is always eating KFC Bites, in a bit of product placement that must be self-consciously clumsy, but is clumsy nonetheless. And if you watch it at the official contest site, you have to endure this commercial, which also lacks charm and humor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBRWR482k0Y&feature=player_embedded
So. Now that I’ve been nothing but negative, I have to say: this is something all major restaurants ought to be thinking about: sponsoring content. Creating excuses for original programming. It’s not a new idea, but it’s a way to combine social media, paid media, and earned media.
So far I can’t think of any good modern examples. (Maybe you can, in the comments?) But just because I haven’t thought of them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
So far that Chipotle video with the Willie Nelson Coldplay cover is as good as I’ve got—and it’s really more of a fun-to-watch ad with a noteworthy song.
