Nintendo taps Joel McHale for mature, faux-viral 3DS ad
updated 01:15 pm EDT, Wed April 11, 2012
Joel McHale explains viral video to Nintendo
Nintendo has created a YouTube video (below) advertising the 3DS with comedian Joel McHale. In a staged meeting, McHale from The Soup and a Nintendo representative simultaneously discuss how to make and subsequently create a viral video using typical clichés.
The video begins with a documentary style shot of the meeting, starts to point out and use the ways that a company manufactures a viral clip, accelerating quickly to including bikini-clad models and staff in character costumes, becoming less subtle and more blatant as the clip progresses.
Although it is a marked shift in targeting to an older audience than usual for the 3DS, it's doubtful the clip will generate interest to the same levels the Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice adverts attained. The film has generated a quarter of a million views in six days on YouTube, compared to Old Spice's 23 million views within 36 hours.
