CNN’s Weird Attempt At Viral Marketing: Adult Swim?!?

As a white male, aged 18 to 35, I watch Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. For the past week or so, my obligatory Judge/McFarlane quotient has been interrupted with ads like this, about Zap News App. (Sorry, embedding is turned off.)

For those too busy or important to click the link, the ad purports to be from two guys (pictured here) from Muncie, Indiana, whose iPhone app idea, Zap News, was stolen by CNN. These ads don’t show any features of their or CNN’s app but then, why should they? Everyone knows what news apps do; i.e., nothing special. Elsewhere on the web, the wronged duo demand that CNN “remove the app from the iTunes App Store and issue a public apology to us, then give us $100,000 and massages. And call our parents and tell them the truth.”

Right about now, you should be thinking to yourself, “Well, this is obviously a viral marketing campaign. The gentleman writing this column, in addition to reinforcing various stereotypes, must be some sort of dimwit.” You are correct to think that, at least the first sentence – that was my reaction, too. The question, though, becomes: viral marketing for what?

The obvious answer is: CNN’s iPhone app. But we’re talking about Adult Swim – not a program known for appealing to the more mature instincts of its viewers. If you Google the show, for example, one of the featured links that comes up is for their online game Zombie Hooker Nightmare, in which a zombie-fighting hooker has to escort tricks to her trailer. At 1:30 in the morning, they show a cartoon called Assy McGee, which is literally an ass and legs that fights crime. A Venn diagram showing the overlap of Adult Swim fans with those who’d want to buy CNN’s news app would look like a pair of spectacles.

An employee from Mekanism confirmed that the spot was created for their client, CNN, but, at this point, hasn’t been any more forthcoming.

We have to ask, then: could the Zap News App be legit? After all, Adult Swim’s ad space can’t be terribly expensive – for a few months earlier this year, they looped an ad for an album of gospel and hymns by Ronnie Milsap. (The fan-base Venn diagram for  that one would resemble a scale model of the Earth’s relationship to Pluto.) I decided to investigate.

Searching for Zap News App turns up a number of blog-style stories on sketchy tech sites – as well as a number of sites that caused my browser to sputter that I was putting myself at risk for viruses. Those sites I declined to visit. I decided then to try to find Zap.

There’s no Zap News App on the Apple iPhone Store (though some enterprising person ought to put one up there). The domain in the ads, ZapNewsApp.com, leads only to a YouTube page with various comments – some people state that it’s a viral campaign, some request more attractive spokespeople, one says “DOWN WITH CNN” with no fewer than nine exclamation points. The YouTube page has a link to a Facebook Fan page, but both of these sites were basically dead ends.

I next checked the domain registration for ZapNewsApp.com which turned up a person’s name and an address. In San Francisco. While SF is basically California’s Muncie, it ain’t Muncie.

Digging deeper still, I found an email address that turned out to be legit – and associated with a the viral marketing firm Mekanism. An employee from Mekanism confirmed that the spot was created for their client, CNN, but, at this point, hasn’t been any more forthcoming.

As best I can figure, CNN paid a marketing firm to run ads on its sister channel, Cartoon Network, that pretend some Hoosier shlubs had their lame news app stolen and turned into another lame news app. This strategy, the wizards at CNN figured, would arouse such a passion against, um, CNN, that people who stay up until one in the morning watching white trash cephalopods would run to the App Store and lay out two dollars.

As you can see, there’s a step I’m not understanding. Or, hopefully, that they’re not. It’s also very possible that this is Phase 1 of a campaign that has more to come. Stay tuned. To, it seems, Adult Swim.

Thus ends The Case of the Curious Advertisement. It has been my pleasure to be the idiot who takes the bait, thereby saving all of you from walking around with hooks in your cheeks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Family Guy is starting, and it’s one I’ve only seen five times before.

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