• by February 20, 2009

"Chuck Storm," a reporter for Action News 55, walks into a pole during a live report. A best man falls down trying to hand the wedding ring to the groom. A man demonstrating a simple household task staples his own hand.

Such short bloopers are the stuff of viral dreams--and of the nine :15 spots starring in the latest ad campaign of TransUnion's TrueCredit.com.

Cast, shot and edited in just a week for launch during December, the spots caught on with the public just as quickly, Lucy Duni, TrueCredit.com's vice president of marketing, tells Marketing Daily. She says the holiday season is usually a slow time for the site, "but we actually had a great December compared to the past."

The campaign is now ongoing, Duni says, with the spots continuing to run on national cable and syndication, within online banner ads, on the firm's YouTube channel, and on FuddyTV.com, the Web site of the Canadian improv group that stars in the ads, and handled the rapid video production for independent agency Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago.

Not only was it rapid, but inexpensive as well, notes Duni. "All nine of the spots cost less than what one would pay for a 30-second spot," she said.

Designed to drive traffic to TrueCredit.com, where consumers can then learn about the importance of credit in today's economy, the ads divert from the industry's usual "more fear-based" approach by "using a little bit more of a lighthearted message to make a serious point," says Duni.

That serious point is driven home in each spot's tag line: "Always know where you stand. Especially with your credit. Fight the unexpected at TrueCredit.com."

The campaign is Cramer-Krasselt's first for TrueCredit.com since being named the company's agency last June.

Handling media as well as creative, C-K has placed the spots on such cable networks as HLN (formerly CNN Headline News), BBC America, Bloomberg, Biography, History, Hallmark, Lifetime and NFL. The video banners are running in such sites as CNN.com and via such ad networks as Yahoo, Value Click, Specific Media, Collective Media and Revenue Science.