sens8shun.com

I’m involved in the advertising and marketing industries, so I pay attention to the ways that companies market their products. Figuring out the formula for successfully doing so on the internet is where a lot of the action is right now. Google hit it big with the text based “relevant advertising” model that proliferates the side bar of properties like search and Gmail, and rich media ads are starting to come into their own with the more widespread adoption of broadband. Taken together though it’s all very old school “advertising” rather than anything resembling the modern version of “branding” that’s being done. Most branding has been left to the companies websites and micro-sites.

Viral marketing holds promise online - especially as it relates to video. BMW created a series of films with high profile names to pimp their brand, delivering it through their own website. It made a lot of noise at the time, although I’m not sure how it affected sales, it surely helped shape the brand.

So how about skivvies? You can advertise them the old school way… like really oldschool… pitch them as the perfect Mothers Day gift (even the dog is in on this one), or the new “internet way” as Google does (if you click the skivvies link, you’re guaranteed to be served underwear related ads on the sidebar of Urban Dictionary site).

But what about branding, and online viral video marketing?

UK boutique lingerie house Lascivious has teamed up with motion shop Wyld Stallyons to create a campaign meant to both sell some delicate unmentionables and raise the profile of the design studio. The result is a short film called The Doll which has just been released. (NSFW if you work somewhere where people care about that type of thing)

As of right now it’s got about 1300 views on YouTube. It will be interesting to see if this combination of slick editing, nice effects work, scantily clad ladies and the promise of violent lesbian robot sex will “go viral” as they say. Are you kidding me? With all of those geek sex credentials and a nice behind the scenes flik as well, it’s hard to imagine how it won’t have hundreds of thousands of page views in the next week or so… but will it sell the underpants? For $100 a pair (and way up), are you in?