The big blog

Imagine 12,000 new sets of eyes on your brand. And a 750% increase in your website traffic. Now imagine it all happening in a single day.

That’s exactly what a just-concluded social-media experiment did for us here at Big. You see, we wanted to find out what kind of numbers you could get by acting fast and seizing a social-media moment. The moment we chose? Lindsay Lohan’s savvy foray this week into (intentional, for once) self-parody. If you haven’t heard or seen, Ms. Lohan collaborated in the creation of a fake eHarmony video in which she spoofs her recent romantic break-up and her media image in general, in an apparent bid to own her narrative rather than let the media take its usual spin around her private life. Presented initially exclusively on the website funnyordie.com, the video received more than a million hits the first day.

Our hypothesis was that some portion of the viewing audience could be sent our way if we could create a sufficiently entertaining video that somehow connected to Ms. Lohan’s, and if we could create it quickly enough to tap into the buzz before the buzz died down. Our self-imposed requirement, though, was that the video couldn’t be an entirely gratuitous play on the subject matter; our own brand and identity had to be incorporated. And so arose “Mr. Big,” a grey-suited and fedora-topped personification (in miniature) of our agency. Overnight, we developed our own eHarmony parody video in which Mr. Big presented himself as a suitable suitor for Ms. Lohan. Uploaded the next morning, likewise to funnyordie.com, we let it run for a little more than 24 hours. The result: 12,042 views. And on our own website (our web address was displayed in the video), the highest one-day traffic count ever, more than 7-1/2 times our average.

All in all, then, an experiment well worth the effort. Boasting some intriguing possibilities, both for Big and for our clients. Want to give something similar a try? Mr. Big awaits your call.