When viral marketing goes wrong

The story goes that Virgin Money were looking for an advert to kick start a new advertising campaign. Lacking inspiration, they naturally asked members of b3ta.com (a website known for its sick humour) to come up with some good designs. The best designs would win Xbox360s and other prizes. This would also, coincidentally, generate some viral buzz in itself.

The competition was to create an image of what would happen if you said 'yes' to everything.

Several images of Richard Branson in "compromising positions" later, Virgin decided to pull the plug on the competition. As b3ta.com founder, Rob, posted last Thursday:

virgin on the ridiculous

• Yep, they pulled the challenge
  
• Yep, they were told before they opened it exactly how it would play out
  
• Yep, they asked us to delete it
  
• Yep, I think think the whole thing is funny

- rob

The lesson Virgin learned here, is the importance of not being stupid.

b3ta.com user Keyboard Weasel confirmed:

"the chance to piss in the face of a multi-national company doesn't come by every day"

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