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You Want Viral Marketing? We've Got Viral Marketing: Awesome Election News Spoof Rings Up 7 Million Hits

news-3-online.jpgOne of the best viral videos we've seen in a while: Fake, personalized "News3Online" election news coverage announcing anyone whose name you submit as a presidential candidate. "A growing grassroots movement born on the Internet to elect a virtual unknown to the highest office in the country," the video's TV reporter narrates.

The videos are a hit: They've been viewed some 7 million times in the last ten weeks, says Joel Smernoff, president and COO of Paltalk, the NYC-based Web chat company that's running the spoof site. Smernoff expects 15 million views by election day in early November.

The video took one day to shoot, and marketing agency Vanksen Group set the site up in two weeks, Smernoff says. And like every real viral hit, it took off on its own: Smernoff says he seeded it by sending the site to 200 pals, and another 1,300 Paltalk users, and let it go from there.

Perhaps the most interesting part: There's almost no way to tell it's a promotional stunt for PalTalk, unless you customize the clip and pass it along to your pals.

See Also:
Gawker: We've Got Sarah Palin's Hacked E-Mail
Republicans Try To Cheer Us Up With A Hilarious Joke: "John McCain Invented The BlackBerry"
Register.com: McCain Is Clueless About The Web, But Our Users Still Voting For Him
Sarah Palin A Huge Hit On ABC, And Even Bigger On The Web
YouTube Thanks ABC For A Great Sarah Palin Interview

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