The Saddest Fist Bump: How a Viral Video Just Became a Virus

Last night, very patheticly, I lay in my bed at 1:15 in the morning contemplating the pros and cons of this whole Agency.com debacle, now that the debate has softened, bloggers have sent out their thank you cards, and have slowly began to pack up and move on....

But there I was, still struggling with my own agency.com demons.  I could feel it coming.  It was the great souring of my opinion of the fist-bumping band of virulent marketers.  I have argued repeatedly that agency.com wins and have already won because of the buzz they gained, and the balls they showed. 

But last night, I made this realization:  Great viral marketing isn't nearly as much about creating the buzz as it is what you do with it.  100,000 views on YouTube doesn't mean shit if there's no point, or nowhere else for the viewer to go.

Agency.com started to get it right.  They were mocked for rolling big, so they joined in on the yucks by starting the whenwerollwerollbig blog.  It was a promising beginning that shamefully death spiraled into it's current role as merely a link aggregator.  They did the job any blog search engine could easily do.

They had the opportunity to bring us all in further.  We could have gotten to know them better, heard their words, and started a conversation with them.  They could have shown that they had real balls, which means to answer your critics.  Ultimately, when they could have taken the platform that they smartly created for themselves, they chose to wuss out, and not take it further, to where it counts.

So, what is Subway to think?  They have proven that they can make a video go viral, but they didn't prove that they understood the megaphone they gave themselves.  They sprinted in the beginning, and collapsed before the finish. 

So, there you go.  I now recant my previous statements in support of Team Fist Bump.  All they did is prove what they couldn't do.  But, at least I'm better for it.