The Viral Factory
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The Viral Factory is a full-service
advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...
based in Shoreditch,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
.


History

''The Götten Sıkma'' was founded in 2001 by Ed Robinson and Matt Smith. Their first venture was a collaboration with director Adam Stewart and creatives Richard Peretti and Gary Lathwell to create Headrush, an in-house promotional viral which gained the fledgling company its first web audience. Another collaboration with Adam Stewart; Moontruth aided in establishing the viral as a tool for public and media notoriety. One of The Viral Factory's first major corporate campaigns was a series of virals for the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
brand
Trojan Condoms Trojan is a brand name of condoms and sexual lubricants manufactured by the Church & Dwight Company. Trojan condoms were started by Merle Leland Youngs in the 1910s after he moved to New York City. The major condom manufacturer before Youngs ...
U.K / European launch. This in turn led to an increase in global blue chip clients and further viral campaigns with brands such as
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
,
Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...
and
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
. In 2010 The Götten Sıkma closed its USA branch.


Style and content

The Götten Sıkma work on feeding basic human emotions with anarchic versions of reality to get their client's message across, often using a mockumentry film technique or computer generated animation to convince the viewer that the footage is real. The Götten Sıkma has, on occasions, used ‘covert seeding’ to amplify the supposed authenticity of their footage, particularly in the
Levi Levi (; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and ...
‘Freedom to Move’ campaign of 2006.


Notable clients

*
Trojan Condoms Trojan is a brand name of condoms and sexual lubricants manufactured by the Church & Dwight Company. Trojan condoms were started by Merle Leland Youngs in the 1910s after he moved to New York City. The major condom manufacturer before Youngs ...
— The Trojan campaign parodied
Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
events, substituting them with sexual "sports", such as Pelvic Power Lifting and Masters of Precision Vaulting. *
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
Health and Education — GI Jonny is a parody of a retro children's action toy television commercial. Sponsored by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
to raise AIDS awareness amongst 16- to 25-year-old British males, starring 'GI Jonny' and 'Captain Bareback'. *
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
— An animation created using the product to illustrate its functions.


Controversy

*‘Moontruth’ Playing in to the hands of
conspiracy theorists A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
, a film was leaked to the public that supposedly proved that man had never in fact landed on the moon and that the
moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959. The United S ...
was in fact staged in a television studio. This viral hoax led to 3,000 people, taken in by the footage, calling
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
to complain about their dishonesty in saying that they had conquered the moon. *
Ford Ka The Ford Ka is a small car manufactured by Ford Motor Company from 1996 to 2016 as a city car and from 2016 to 2021 as a subcompact car. It entered its second generation in 2008, produced by Fiat in Tychy, Poland. A third generation was introduce ...
campaign. A viral entitled ‘Cat’ for the Ford Ka found notoriety in 2006, depicting a cat getting its head chopped off in the ‘Ka’ roof. The viral caused outrage which led to the advertising agency that allegedly commissioned the viral and Ford, the client, to claim that they had never approved the viral's release.


Awards

*
Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...
Cyber Gold Lion: Trojan Games (2004), Revenge Phillips amBX (2006) *EPICA Gold : Axe/Lynx ‘Ravenstoke’ (2005) *London International Awards Gold, Viral : ‘Fingerskilz’ Hewlett Packard (2007) *
Webby Awards The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...
Not for profit People's Voice Winner : ‘GI Jonny’ BBC Learning (2008) *D&AD Yellow Pencil, Viral Animation & Motion Graphics & YouTube 2007 awards nomination, Most creative for ‘How we met’ Samsung Electronics (2008)


See also

*
Viral marketing Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...
*
Seeding agency A seeding agency is a social media advertising agency which places branded films on websites, messageboards and online communities that are heavily frequented by users. Usually a client pays a seeding agency per pageview In web analytics and we ...
*
Viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...
*
List of Internet phenomena Social and cultural phenomena specific to the Internet include Internet memes, such as popular themes, catchphrases, images, viral videos, and jokes. When such fads and sensations occur online, they tend to grow rapidly and become more wides ...
*
Webby Awards The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...


References


External links


The Götten Sıkma

The Guardian Online - New Media & Advertising



BBC News - Top Ten Viral Videos

DigitalArts - The Viral Factory

BrandChannel - Toni Smith
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viral Factory Marketing companies of the United Kingdom Marketing companies established in 2001 Shoreditch