Perrier's "Interactive" Party: Same Crowd, More Sweat

by Steve Smith, Jun 29, 2011, 12:41 PM

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Apparently at its end, the Perrier Le Club campaign online can claims some level of success if video views are the measure. Earlier in June, Perrier invited users to watch and share a video of a party scene on YouTube. The hook was that the more people who watched and shared, "the hotter the party." To wit, increased viewer levels would unlock new versions of the same clip of a beautiful woman making her way through the party to an ice bucket to pull out a Perrier. I gather they got what they were after.

Six videos are now unlocked at the branded YouTube site, and a thermometer gauge to indicate progress is blazing red. The site claims this morning more than 9.6 million views. The channel itself has only 3,701 subscribers. Over at the Facebook Perrier Le Club page, the mineral water attracted about 50,000 likes. Visible Measures is ranking the video at #5 among viral videos, with a reach of 990,462.

I will spare you the suspense and the tedium of coursing through all six videos. The party gets so hot by the last scene it melts the film. And who knew that it is only a real party when the participants appear to be covered in sweat and oil. Bring out the crank case drippings, Olga. Hans brought the "Eyes Wide Shut" masks. It is time to really get down, now.

The series would have been more effective creatively had there been some real surprises or twists in the later videos. The basic conceit here, a Groundhog Day-like encounter with the same party scene but ratcheted up in steaminess each time, is better on paper than in execution. On the one hand, in the abstract, the series is on point for the brand. Perrier is aligning itself with the club scene, I imagine as a non-alcoholic, thirst-quenching option. The company is putting out club guides to major cites as part of the overall program. I gather depicting sweaty dirty bodies is meant to evoke the multiple-uses of water in a club. By the end of the video series our clubbing protagonist barely drinks the Perrier. She just dumps a lot of it on her face.

But here is yet another example of an online viral/social campaign that makes the end user feel more like a well-trained monkey than an empowered consumer. Jump through these hoops for us and we will show you another predictable video. Help us do our marketing for us, won't you? Shouldn't the consumer come to the end of a six video "interactive experience" feeling entertained, informed, rewarded? Not used? 

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