Have you seen the “Ball Girl” video on YouTube? A ball girl runs down the left field line at a minor league baseball game and does an unbelievable jump to catch a fly ball. The video has been viewed over 2 million times on YouTube, featured on Good Morning America, CNN, and was a most-shared video on Break.com.
Now the clip has been revealed to be a hoax – or rather – an Internet marketing campaign and ad for Gatorade. The company’s name is never mentioned – but if you look closely you will see that when the ball girl sits down after the amazing catch there’s a bottle of the popular sports drink by her feet.
On the one hand, it’s incredibly subtle, but almost any time a brand enters into pop culture discussions it’s bound to benefit – and this kind of exposure and interest is, well, “priceless.” On the other hand, authenticity-wise – I’m not so sure. What do you think?
Being trained as a journalist, I’m constantly remembering to “consider the source.” It amazes me that so often, people fail to do that in determining the veracity of published information, whether in an overt marketing or PR message or a seemingly independent set of images or messages.
I don’t quarrel with Gatorade for posting the video; I am disappointed that people wouldn’t question whether or not it contained planned product placement.
I believe taking things at face value, while a convenient shortcut in our “take shortcuts” world, is lazy. There’s always a backstory.
Comment by Jane R. on June 26, 2008 at 5:53 pm