Forget flash mobs, is this the mother of all launch videos? (video)

11 Apr 2012

It seems whenever a brand wants to launch something these days, it has to have a video about to go viral. But forget flash mobs with spontaneous singing and dancing, people want something a little more high definition and if Belgian TV channel TNT’s launch in a sleepy Flemish town’s square is anything to go by, they want action, drama, sex, gunfire …

For the YouTube video ‘A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square’, the producers chose a clearly unremarkable Flemish town square and put a red button in its centre with a sign “push to add drama.”

As soon as an unsuspecting passerby presses the button, chaos is unleashed.

An ambulance shows up to bring an ill man to hospital and as soon as it departs the doors fly open and the patient is thrown from the ambulance.

A cyclist collides with the door of the ambulance, a fight breaks out. Soon an armoured jeep bursts on to the scene and the square is deafened by the sounds of gunfire as a shootout between cops and terrorists ensues.

All throughout, a lady clad in lingerie zips across the square on a motorbike.

Finally, an American football team arrives to carry the prone patient to safety and a banner is unfurled declaring the launch of TNT.

Explosive or what?

 

 

 

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com