• by Karl Greenberg , January 7, 2011

  Andy Griffith's first big role was not on TV as the sheriff of a Harper Lee-type Southern town, but as a drifter named "Lonesome Rhodes" in "A Face in the Crowd," Elia Kazan's bitterly caustic examination of America's love of sudden fame and wealth and how they are tinder for self immolation.

"Lonesome," a homeless drunk with a golden voice and folksy guitar stylings, is discovered in an Arkansas jail playing his guitar and singing folksy tunes. After a journalist discovers him, some publicity sharps recognize that he has a kind of Will Rogers appeal and turn him into a polymath star of TV, ads, products -- you name it. The film then details his descent into megalomania, and, as I recall, his return to the dusty roads of Arkansas. Although that may be wishful thinking.

The events Kazan unreeled in "Crowd" must have seemed at the time like a Ragged Dick-style exaggeration -- albeit darkly comic -- of how anybody can make it in America with the right personality, talent, pluck and just good luck. These days, the Lonesome Rhodes story line doesn't seem like a hyperbole-driven parable at all; it's almost quaint. When something sets off a spark online, the Web is its own convection column for the fire: 15 minutes of fame is down to five seconds. Anyone seen the dramatic cat videos?

Kazan's movie is also as much about the total control a cadre of marketers has over Rhodes' fate as it is about Rhodes and his nefarious transformation. It's about the remorse Patricia Neal's character (the journalist who discovers Rhodes) feels about having lent a hand in creating the Lonesome Rhodes mystique, and her own seduction by it.

Ted Williams (not the Red Sox star and Korean war hero, but the formerly homeless man from Columbus, Ohio, now known everywhere as "The Man With The Golden Voice") demonstrates in vitro just how efficiently the Web can digest an event and amplify it. Like Rhodes, Williams was discovered by a reporter, but this time the scoop was with a video camera and a USB jack. Once the video went viral, then the more traditional news reports came. And then came the marketing deals. This week Williams was on shows like "The Today Show" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and he has a contract to pitch Kraft's Macaroni & Cheese. He has reportedly done voiceovers for MSNBC, and has an offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team, and on and on.

Jim Sanfilippo, COO of Innocean Americas, who knows a thing or two about the value of buzz (his agency recently engineered the deal with Web sensation Pomplamoose that put the music duo in holiday ads) points out that while the velocity has changed, the vehicle hasn't. "This is America on steroids. But America is America and believe me when I tell you we are different than everybody else. And we love this notion that you can be in dog shit one day and turn around and be a superstar in a week. The 'week' part of it is only a product of the technology.

"Yes, we are dealing with blinding speed, but YouTube is the hardware. The software is the idea that the individual counts -- that the individual matters. And that a person's idea belongs to that person."

Scott Monty, Ford's digital and multimedia communications manager, says that while there's a "flavor of the month" zeitgeist to the Ted Williams phenom, it's a minute-and-a-half event people identify with. "People love a good story. As marketers, we need to hone our own storytelling."

Kraft has moved quickly. Williams was in New York this week shooting TV ads for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, part of the "You know you love it" campaign. The first ad will debut, appropriately, during the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Sunday.

Monty lauds Kraft for its timing and recognizing how Williams fit with the campaign and its corporate goodwill efforts around feeding undernourished families. "How Kraft has picked up on this is perfect," he says. "They delineated exactly why he fits the demographic they are trying to reach, their corporate message, and the brand. That's a fundamental underpinning. We need to be flexible and nimble when stories pop up. Kraft is doing that now. That's light speed. Every marketer has to be aware of what's going on around them and build plans adaptable on a moment's notice."

Monty says that given where Williams has been, there's a certain amount of risk, but "there's inherent risk in anything marketers do because we don't have the same control we had. Brands are in the hands of customers. But I think people want to see him succeed; people love a turnaround."