Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Easter Bunny Hates You was a corporate creation!

I'm actually a little disappointed.
Though when it first appeared NBC had tried to stop it, "Lazy Sunday" ended up a true viral video - a clip that spreads from user to user on the Internet, like a virus. Eventually it could be seen free on NBC.com and iTunes as well as YouTube.

"I think 6 or 7 million people downloaded it when it was circulated in various places," said Beth Comstock, president of digital media and market development for NBC.

After that, she said, "we took our studio to task and said, `What can you create?'"

The result was "The Easter Bunny Hates You," in which a guy in a rented costume beats the stuffing out of everyone in sight.

"Five million people streamed the video or downloaded it in some fashion," said Comstock. "And if you consider that in a cable rating, that's a pretty amazing audience that in just two weeks something that was not even branded NBC reached an audience."

And it was purposely not branded NBC.

"Because it was a bit experimental, because it was viral, we thought it would be best to try it without any sort of branding," she said. "Because it's a bit more authentic right now."