The hilarious “Jesus Christ in Richmond Park” has been viewed over 600,000 times (at the time of writing this) since being uploaded only a few days before. Having been picked up by various media figures and publications, the viral initiated a host of parodies including Benton in London (American Werewolf in London), Benton Vs Bambi and Jurassic Park Benton, as well as the creation of a spoof Twitter account @BentonsOwner dedicated to the frantic “Oh Jesus Christ” shouting dog chaser.

You can’t help but wonder if the owner of Benton is actually aware of his infamy, and what success the stress of trying to catch up with his eager four legged friend and a herd of deer will bring to his life.

It was recently reported that YouTube fame can become a nice little earner for the stars of well timed video moments that go viral. The family of finger biting Charlie (Charlie Bit My Finger), arguably one of the biggest viral videos of recent times, have made over £100,000 from its success by introducing ads and signing up to YouTube’s partner programme.

For businesses trying to cash in on viral victory, the path to success is tricky as you have be very original when trying to create a video which will be shared and viewed by audiences, who are not necessarily interested in your brand or product. The point of a viral is that it gains you notoriety and brand recognition, and this needs to be remembered when coming up with a concept. The objective is that, yes, it does have an effect on your ROI but ultimately its first step is to create a buzz around your brand…one that will be associated to whatever content you put out there.

Earlier this month web agency SapientNitro posted a cringe inducing music video on their Facebook page which rapped about the role of their ‘Idea Engineer’. Predictably, from the minute it appeared the video was ridiculed and in a moment of thoughtlessness SapientNitro deleted the post and comments which resulted in a huge backlash and over exposure of the content, when it was re-uploaded onto YouTube and became the feature of many blogs. Their, probably heavily planned and costly, video became the target of many critics and their understanding of digital media was questioned. It really couldn’t have seemed worse for SapientNitro at the time – on the flip side though, it did get them trending on Twitter for a day or two!

The argument when it comes to achieving viral success is…is all publicity good publicity? Of course digital experts and agencies are going to voice their opinion if your video results in as many gasps of horror as SapientNitro’s, but ultimately they did achieve increased brand recognition…it’s just a shame that from now on their industry peers will always remember them as a badly rapping idea engineer surrounded by a small entourage of awkward looking ladies. SapientNitro’s clients may have loved it though, and in terms of recruitment its most likely not had a detrimental impact.

It should be said that SapientNitro are not the first company or web specialist to try and achieve success through a badly devised music video, and we’re sure they won’t be the last. Let’s face it though, unless you can compete with the likes of Yeo Valley it might be best to stick to something closer to your talents.

For those of you who haven’t yet come across possibly one of the most successful YouTube business case studies, let me introduce you to Blendtec. Makers of the ‘world’s best blenders, mixers and mills’, Blendec have made a series of videos showing how their product can blend pretty much anything. From iPad’s to Golfballs, Justin Bieber to Old Spice (nice little social media reference there) The Will it Blend? Campaign gained them over 400,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel , millions of hits and most importantly an enormous uplift in sales.

Bendtec YouTube Channel

Viral success is one big experiment and whether you’re an unsuspecting dog owner, a high profile web agency or the maker of blenders you really can’t predict how far a simple upload will take you. There are no rules, just a hungry audience waiting to rate your efforts if you’re fortunate (or in the case of some unfortunate) enough to get noticed in the first place. You can stick to what you know best or create something that appeals to a mass audience but is so far removed from your actual service or product you create a new identity.

One thing you can learn from though is others…Lesson One. Don’t rap unless you can. Lesson two. Don’t let your dog off the lead when around deer.

Our Pumpkins

The Soak team have put togther a collection of pumpkin carvings, please take a look and vote for the one you like best, to vote simply Facebook like or Tweet the one you want to win!

• Uncle Percy

  

  Vote For Uncle Percy below:

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• Fang

  

  Vote For Fang below:

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• Muncher

  

  Vote For Muncher below:

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• Roy

  

  Vote For Roy below:

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• Timmeh

  

  Vote For Timmeh below:

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• Hello Kitty

  

  Vote For Hello Kitty below:

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• Skeletor

  

  Vote For Skeletor below:

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• Pac Man

  

  Vote For Pac Man below:

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• The Kernel

  

  Vote For The Kernel below:

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• 1) Duck tape windows:

  
  Everyone knows that spiders are not very good at removing duck-tape from surfaces, mainly due to their feeble legs.

• 2) enforce the use of draft extractors on all doors

  
  Its a common fact that spiders often travel from room to room under doors – simply using draft excluders will prevent this. (TIP: use a realistic snake excluder to add extra effect as the spider will also fear being eaten)

• 3) Get a cat

  
  Well known fact… cats love to chase and eat spiders. By getting a studio cat you can ensure that if a wily spider manages to get in, the cat will see to it!

• 4) Don’t leave spider food lying around

  
  We are not quite sure what house spiders eat, but we are confident that leaving food out will certainly attract them.

• 5) Introduce spider patrols

  
  To stay on top of arachnid security it might be necessary to introduce daily perimeter checks to ensure that all your defences are still in place.

Simply follow these five steps and you should have a spider proof studio. You can now work relaxed in the knowledge that there will be no eight legged disruptions.

If you have any further tips on preventing spiders please let us know!

Download Printable Poster »

We’ve been messing around with Google maps for a while now and we’ve put these skills to good use on this little project to let visitors to the site add their own dream Christmas to our map quickly and simply, and instantly updating to show where they’ve placed their marker.

For the design style we took a lot of visual cues from the golden age of advertising, the 1950s, when Christmas was very much a family affair and not yet tainted with the frenzy of commercialism that creeps in today (usually starting around October). We really went to town, adding in lots of hidden extras which hopefully repeat visitors will pick up on, such as the message that is visible only on really wide monitors.

In fact I’m so pleased with it that I’ve made the background from the site into some wallpapers for any of you wanting to put a little Christmas cheer onto their computer.

Download 1280 x 1026

Download 1024 x 821

Merry Christmas, everyone

Then came the ubiquitous company update, which turned more into an open debate about Soak, the digital economy and our ideas for the future. It was fantastic to see everyone so fired up and enthusiastic about the business, and lots of good ideas were put forward, some of which we’re going to develop over the coming months.

After a hearty curry (all you can eat, so I did, a move which came back to haunt me later on), we had a go at archery which was considerably more technically challenging than the shooting. I think we all managed to at least hit the target but it was Jake posing as Robin Hood who proved the most accurate even winning a small plastic medal!

All in all a great day out and a nice break from the computer screens. Big thanks to Soak’s own James Reeve for organising it and Potters for hosting and making sure we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot!

However it seems that the most active use of the digital space has been to satirise the whole campaign. Try as they might politicians just don’t have the charisma of say, Barack Obama, to really pull off an effective digital campaign, and given the UK’s proud tradition, think Spitting Image, of satirising politics, it’s not really that surprising that we’ve so gleefully embraced the opportunity to have a few laughs.

Clifford Singer’s website mydavidcameron.com has received a huge amount of publicity for its spoofing of the Conservative party’s poster campaigns. The site has received some 250,000 unique visitors and over 1,200 poster submissions, showing clearly not only how much people enjoy a good laugh, but how keen they are to get involved.

The sudden popularity of Nick Clegg after the first tv debate and the subsequent spin offensive by some tabloid papers brought a swift and satirical response from the twitter community leading to the phrase #nickcleggsfault becoming a top trending topic and apparently accounting for “a staggering 0.6% of all twitter traffic”.

And finally, just two days ago Gordon Brown was accidentally overhead by reporters describing a Labour supporter as a ‘bigoted woman’ sparking a media frenzy. Google currently has nearly 2 million results for ‘gordon brown bigoted woman’ and Youtube has just under 600 videos. The spoofs have already started to appear with the return of Keyboard Cat.

The British have always had a tendency not to take things too seriously and it’s nice to see that tradition continuing into the internet age, but I worry that in the past where political satire was restricted to those with actual political views strong enough for them to go to the trouble of creating a poster or sketch show, it’s become a bit of a free-for-all.

The final spoof seems to be that while these virals start off as a political comment on the General Election, they turn into everyone trying to say something stupid or funny in a game of one-up-man-ship without any sort of relevance to the original statement, a problem Clifford Singer raised at the Progressive London conference in January.

Has all this satire served to raise politics up higher in the public consciousness, or has it served only to feed our apathy about government? All will be revealed next week when the voter numbers start rolling in.

Mind you, I’m just happy that 6 hours a day on the xbox costs less than £4 per month – I won’t let myself be blamed for outrageous leccy bills ever again!

It can be hard to face leaving the comfort of the office, especially when the weather is grey and miserable. Having a few tasks that need to be done, doing your food shopping at lunch-time, pop to the post office, grab those last minute birthday/anniversary/christmas gifts, can be a good way of ensuring you don’t waste your precious hour staring at cars and dodging piles of dog mess.

More controversially, don’t bring your own lunch, which does force you to go out and forage, unless of course you have a nice lady who sells sandwiches door to door like we do.

Taking a proper lunch break is about more than just making sure you don’t faint from lack of sustenance. It’s about a breathing space in the middle of the chaos of a busy day, and a social event to help you reconnect with your colleagues face-to-face rather than over emails.

Here’s what the Soak crowd have been snacking on recently.

Lovely Left-overs

A big favourite is to bring in some of last night’s dinner in a Tupperware box, having cleverly cooked far too much the night before. Some meals actually taste better after a night sat cogitating in the fridge, shepherd’s pie, pizza, lasagne, all excellent foods made better by reheating in nano-seconds in a microwave.

Soup of the day

Recently certain members of the team have made it their mission to sample as many flavours of soup as our local Unnamed Supermarket Retailer has to offer. With tastes ranging from Broccoli and Stilton to the more exotic Moroccan Chicken & Split Pea, he’s certainly got a lot on his plate (ha!) with this one.

Wii and Pizza night

In order to stay motivated it’s important to take a break from work. Just the other week we hooked up a Nintendo Wii to the big projector, dug out a Domino’s pizza menu and took turns at a bit of virtual bowling. It’s a great way for everyone in the office to let their hair down and prove once and for all who is King-pin.

Here are the finalists:

Here's Gingey - aka the shining

Nothing but socks and gloves

Superbread man!

Fresh Gingerbread

Norwich City Gingerbread

We will let you decide who should win.