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Social Media Can Be Fun!
by Katie Carty Tierney on Dec 26, 2007 - 09:17 PM read 1571 times
Source: http://txaggie94.wordpress.com/2007/12/27/social-media-ca...

While sitting in the family room, scanning LinkedIn Profiles and looking for a NYC-based recruiter, I was half-listening to the Funniest Commercials of 2007 special on TBS. One of the commercials that caught my ear (and, subsequently, eye) was from Hydro Energy in Norway, and involved a group of kids and a train. Take a look at the commercial here:

This ad is a classic example of how companies can use Social Media to drive publicity efforts. Hydro isn’t looking to recruit 10-year-olds. They’re looking to build interest in their products, services, and mission by developing a sense of curiosity about what do. Frankly, I was driven to www.hydro.com because I wanted to see what kind of company came up with such a creative ad campaign. I happened to see the original ad on television, but given that you can see it on veryfunnyads.com, YouTube, MSN Videos, and others, it has become a form of Social Media, easily shared, and open to collaboration. It’s funny to read some of the YouTube comments, where it appears that some people thought it was REAL. Yikes. Let’s not go there.

But, I digress… Because the Hydro train ad is so interesting, it’s all over the internet. If you search Google for “Hydro Train,” you will see over 462,000 results, most of which are sites like mine - blogs and aggregators.

Hydro struck gold with this ad (and a couple of others like it). They are harnessing the power of the internet to spread their message, and they are do it exceptionally well.