While surfing aimlessly through YouTube back in May I came across a video that I found equally inspiring and unbelievable. A clip about a new sport started by Ulf Gartner that nurtures the idea of positive thinking and an undying passion to keep innovating, practicing and learning from failures. These guys were running on water and they weren’t named Chris Angel or Jesus. The sport was called Liquid Mountaineering. What I found out later created an appreciation of another type.

As I watched intently and listened to athlete Sabastian Vanderwerf speak about the evolution of the sport and techniques involved I was flooded with curiosity. Well written quotes like “if you don’t believe… it’s not going to happen for you.” and “people want you to think in a certain way and this sport allows you to push your horizons…. you’re moving past it all.” were inspiring and easily applied to any endeavor that requires hard work and determination. Then at 1:26, my skeptical marketing mind kicked in during a perfectly lit, different colored, label featuring, water-beading, close-up of a shoe accompanied with a eloquent verbal endorsement from Sabastian for Hi-Tec waterproof runners. Well played Hi-Tec you had me for a second, and with well over a million views to date, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

Check out the original video, the press release and more info below about this well executed viral campaign.

Simon Bonham, the Head of Marketing for Hi-Tec Group comments, “We wanted to create a piece of entertainment around our hydrophobic footwear and get people talking and thinking about the brand differently.” He added, “The idea was to take a traditional form of marketing and totally turn it around on its head, in the process capturing the fun spirited side of our brand. The reaction to the viral has surpassed all expectations; with people all over the world debating whether this could indeed be possible or not and even trying to do their own Liquid Mountaineering. We’ve even seen a number of entertaining attempts appear on YouTube and other places on the Web”

More information about the Liquid Mountaineering hoax can be found here. Below is a except taken from the blog created for the campaign. How are you getting people to talk about you?

Lady Gaga has catapulted herself to the top of the music and fashion industries in a very short time. One of the reasons she’s become such a media darling is because of her boldness to push boundaries, be herself with no apologies and her economic potential.  She’s also head of her own design house, partners with Monster in a new line of headphones as well as the recently named “Creative Director” of a new line of imaging products from Polaroid.

Product placement is everywhere in our TV shows and cinema but somewhat rarer territory for music videos. Lady Gaga’s video for “Telephone”, released with Beyonce, has shattered any records that may have existed before by featuring a list of at least 11 (that I could find) brands or products throughout the video. Even Quentin Tarantino managed to negotiate some promo in the video when he insisted that Gaga use his “Pussy Wagon”; The bright yellow Chevy that was first seen in 2003 in “Kill Bill Vol. 1″.

Some may call her a sell-out, but those who can look under the surface will see the underlying artists message as well as the business smarts behind it. Music Videos can be pricey, especially when it’s nine minutes long, shot across three days, took a month to edit and involved as many props, locations, wardrobe and talent as this one does. For most artists, all this comes out of their pocket. However, Lady Gaga used all the angles she could to get the support to produce and create to her full potential. Surprisingly, not all the products in the video were paying sponsors. Tony Carter (Gaga’s Manager) went though the list with AdAge and revealed in an article, the paid vs unpaid.

Here’s the list of products in the order they appear and the details.

Heartbeat Headphones – Partnership / Unpaid
Virgin Mobile – Sponsor of Monster Ball Tour. / Unpaid
Chanel – Vintage sunglasses. / Unknown
Diet Coke – Homage to her mom who curled her hair with them in the ’70s. Diet Coke also has an empty Celebrity+Style page now. / Unpaid
HP Envy & Beats by Dr. Dre – Partnership / Unpaid
Plenty of Fish (a Vancouver company!) – Partnership with Universal Music’s marketing team and Interscope Records. / Unpaid
Chevrolet (or the Kill Bill series) - Yellow C-2500 Crew Cab Silverado a.k.a. The Pussy Wagon. / Unpaid
Little Debbie’s Honey Buns – Pastry eaten in the truck / Unknown
Polaroid - Partnership. / Unpaid
Mexico via Pacifico – Neon sign in the diner scene. / Unknown
Miracle Whip - Used for the same reason as Wonderbread below but also included to support Miracle Whip’s new ad campaign. / Paid
Wonderbread – Let’s Make a Sandwich! Gaga wanted to juxtapose a well-known, “all-American” brand with the poison used to kill the diners./ Unpaid
Coors Light – Neon sign on the wall of the diner dance scene. Not exactly the logo but might as well be. / Unknown

Carter commented that “If Michael Jackson was making ‘Thriller (today),’ he would do this too. These million-dollar music videos have to have partners to be produced.” When the video launched online the link on the Vevo/YouTube homepage was overloaded and crashed. The video broke all Vevo single-day records and attracted 4 million views in the first 24 hours. Good or bad, that’s a lot of eyes on a product.

It may have been a tough decision for the marketing departments of some of these brands to decide to sink company money into a promotion like this, for others it was a no-brainer. One thing is for sure, it will be interesting to see how (or if) all this exposure by one of the most edgy and boundary-pushing artists of recent years converts into product sales.