Free Hugs and the death of the viral film

This just made me really happy.

And it's also a good example of why branded 'viral' films are getting less and less viral.

We don't need them anymore. There are enough people out there who want to produce short film content to fill the all the servers of Youtube. The glorious heyday of Kylie in her underwear on that rodeo bull reaching millions is over.

Ask yourself - what would you rather send to your mate? Free hugs or an ad?

Ok, if the ad had Kylie on a rodeo bull I would still consider it.

So what's the next step? Brands either have to be offering currency that consumers can't access [Kylie] or providing other kinds of web services that are beyond the scope the average individual and perhaps even facilitates the individual's creative expression.

That Flickr badge thing just over to the right there gets everywhere doesn't it? Just a thought.

Via It could get worse.

UPDATE: Clearly Adage doesn't agree with me. But I think most of their examples exist way beyond viral film - Lynxjet, Adicolour - all have excellent online components of much bigger ideas. Online isn't a discrete channel, somehow seperate from the rest of media, and the best ideas reflect this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mat has pointed out that this is, in fact, a music video for a band. Kind of. Or rather that the song is the soundtrack to the film.