Herman Cain’s viral video exploits taboo where television cannot

“Hey man, I did a radio interview for XM radio. Nobody heard it. Come on, who has XM Radio? [Crowd cheers.] Hey, I’ll be damned! It’s growing in popularity. They said, ‘you can swear on XM radio.’ No shit, ‘cause nobody can hear it. You can swear in the woods, too.”

--comedian Mitch Hedberg, 2003

As often happens with technology, Hedberg’s joke about the obscurity of XM Satellite Radio was obsolete before he could even bring it to market. Intending to point out that satellite radio is too insignificant to be regulated, he found that satellite radio apparently had significant support among his audience.

And yet, it still remains relatively unregulated. (I found out this much when working at a pool this summer. While blasting my favorite satellite radio station through the P.A. system, I accidentally allowed the family-based crowd there to hear this selection from Offspring’s “Bad Habit.” Oops.) Even as new technologies have gone mainstream, the hands of regulation have barely touched them, at least compared to old media (TV, radio, newspapers). Perhaps governments just need some time to catch up. Or maybe the expanding universe of communication is now just too big to control. In any case, there are no signs that media over the internet is soon about to become as safe or sterilized as, say, television.

So yes, you can cuss on XM Radio, you can cuss on the internet, and… you can even smoke on the internet. It’s damn near one of the only places left that hasn’t banned smoking. I think that’s why you get this:

Reactions to Herman Cain’s most famous web ad have ranged from horror to joy. But the video never fails to cause a reaction.

So why should the video be so shocking? About one fifth of all Americans smoke, and many more have smoked at one point or another. The rest of the country is generally accustomed to seeing or interacting with smokers on a somewhat regular basis. Would it have caused such a stir if the campaign chief delivered his monologue while seated at a bar, and punctuated it with a sip from his beer? Is tobacco use that much more shocking than alcohol use?

In real life, no. In advertising, yes. In 1970, Congress passed a law which prohibited cigarette advertisements on television and radio. Granted, this doesn’t necessarily mean a cigarette can’t appear in an ad, provided the ad isn’t actually selling cigarettes. (I doubt there’s anything that would legally prevent the Cain ad from being shown on television, but stations might refuse to run it.) The basic idea, though, is burned into our brains: you can’t smoke in a television ad. In the meantime, we’ve been bombarded by hundreds of classic beer ads, but the cigarette ad on television is a lost art form.

Despite disappearing from TV ads, cigarette use continues in movies and television shows, and in plenty of other places…

But not in television ads. Four decades of television taboo makes a relatively commonplace real-life sight (a man smoking a cigarette) seem somehow scandalous as part of a video advertisement. Some dorky old dude’s absolutely mundane habit is now the edgiest damn thing out there. You might think we live in an era in which nothing is shocking, but it’s still easy enough to surprise people, provided you can identify the right taboo.

Old Spice and the Art of Going Viral

In the days following Super Bowl XLIV (2010), perhaps the most buzzed-about television ad was a clip for Old Spice body wash.  The ad single-handedly turned Isaiah Mustafa, formerly a practice squad football player, into something of a minor celebrity. In the ad, a towel-clad Mustafa asks for the attention of the “ladies” in the audience, then proceeds to explain, with humorously over-the-top arrogance, why he is superior to all other men.  He concludes that a man should smell “like Old Spice, and not a lady.”  And of course, he’s on a horse.

There’s only one problem with the legend of the Man Your Man Could Smell Like on the Super Bowl broadcast.

The spot never appeared on the Super Bowl broadcast.

Though released to coincide with the Super Bowl, the ad’s television run was fairly limited.  It was viewed mainly as a viral video.  On Youtube alone, the video has garnered 36.5 million views and counting.

These days, it seems like the “viral” phenomenon has even more power than television when it comes to pushing things into the cultural lexicon.  The Old Spice Guy is ubiquitous.  It earned its own Sesame Street parody, which is truly a signal that something has broken through to the mainstream consciousness.  Though it addresses the audience with the salutation, “Hello ladies,” it was a sensation among the dudes as well.  Millions of guys were going around claiming to be on a horse.  (Most them weren’t, in fact, on a horse at the time.)  Personally, if I go to a concert and someone asks me if I’ve got the tickets on me, I can’t resist holding the tickets up, raising my eyebrow, and declaring, in the best smooth baritone I can muster, “THE TICKETS ARE NOW DIAMONDS!”

It’s difficult to intentionally make a viral video.  You can buy banner ads or sponsored links on Google, but to really go viral, a video needs to earn a life of its own.  Average people need to e-mail the link to their friends.  People think of advertisements as something they want to avoid.  In the age of TiVo, television ads are something to be fast-forwarded through.  A viral video is cool.  People come to the video voluntarily.  The video doesn’t just have a target audience.  It has fans.

Having gotten that far by making a hip video, the campaign went further by inviting its fans to become part of the process.  The following summer, Mustafa and company spent a few days recording short video responses to questions posed on Twitter and other social media.  In addition to regular people, multiple celebrities got in on the act.  How cool do you look when Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, George Stephanopoulos, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres, Perez Hilton, and Apolo Ohno are just giddy about the chance to be name-checked in your videos?  In all, there are almost 200 such videos on Youtube.

Having become socially involved with the fans, the hook is set.  How can you buy another body wash now?  This is the brand that you forwarded to your entire e-mail contact list.  You “tweeted” a question to the creators (even though, if you weren’t really lucky, your question probably didn’t get answered).  You wasted an entire afternoon clicking through 100 different short videos of a half-naked man in a bathroom.  You’re part of the team now!

Honestly, I don’t think there’s that much difference between one body wash and any other.  But when I’m in the hygiene aisle, and I’m staring at 18 different equal options, I see the Old Spice label and think of things that once made me laugh.  So what if the gel inside the bottle isn’t special?  In honor of the brand, I can afford the $3.79.