Mozilla has quietly launched a new viral campaign in support of Firefox, complete with song (YouTube TC exclusive above) and some fighting words against Internet Explorer.
The main part of the campaign is a site by the name of Fight Against Boredom which apparently means don’t use Internet Explorer, use Firefox. The site itself features a fake talk show setup, links to a Facebook page, downloads for the fight boredom song, and links to download Firefox.
It’s meant to be viral, but I’m not sure Microsoft will take the following statistics quoted on the page in the best light:
Compared to Internet Explorer users, Firefox users are
* 21% less likely to be a sales representative or agent at their current place of business.
* 45% more likely to have gone on vacation in San Francisco within the last 2 years.
* 33% less likely to live with others suffering from high cholesterol.
* 6% less likely to have eaten any meal at Chick-fil-A within the last 7 days.
* 24% less likely to live with others suffering from heart disease.
* 66% more likely to have viewed or listened to audio or video about politics or public affairs news within the last 30 day.
* 89% more likely to have purchased database software for work in the last year.
* 38% less likely to live with others suffering from breast cancer.
There’s even a fake blog complete with mocked up Mozilla criticisms that is pretending to report on the viral campaign as well. The site reports that Tay Zonday of “Chocolate Rain” fame and Leslie Hall of “Gem Sweater” are in the video, but I’m sure I saw a Ninja there, perhaps readers can put a name to a few more participants as well.
Update: Well, the site has been taken down for now and the “statistics,” which some found to be offensive, are being rewritten. Mozilla VP Marketing Paul Kim explains below.
Great…
Advertisements and campagns are one thing and these campagns “supposed to be viral” are another thing. What is Mozilla trying to do? If firefox was “much ” better than ie, people would have used that. The fact is that ie sucks, and firefox sucks.
There is nothing notable in firefox. I would always recommend Opera rather.
“* 33% less likely to live with others suffering from high cholesterol.
* 24% less likely to live with others suffering from heart disease.
* 38% less likely to live with others suffering from breast cancer.”
uh, that’s not funny…
other
I didn’t think so.
Lovely video!
Firefox is noticeable slower then IE when dealing with sites that have robust Javascript (at least on my site). Anybody else notice / care about that?
Duncan – send me your address – I want to send you the bill for my time for watching that piece of sh**.
Tay would whore himself out for diapers if it paid.
If this is what being a firefox user is like, give me ie7.
Allen
lol.
Nice!
@Robert: Firefox3 will be faster then IE7 even FF2 is faster then IE7 “in my case
I like supporting the underdog, the lunatic fringe, offbeat humor, all that good stuff.
This was a tortuous embarrassment though. I actually wondered whether this was an internal video circulating at Microsoft poking fun at Firefox users. I suspect the IE team isn’t losing any sleep over this campaign.
No IE7 for me, though I do like my Chick Fil-A.
Duncan, sorry, didn’t mean to imply that you found it funny, was just saying that there’s a limit, and just because it’s an attempt to be viral, there’s no need for them to be excessively stupid.
not that great…
other,
sorry, I was agreeing. It’s not funny, well mostly. The song and dance routine by itself would be ok, but the statistics are borderline offensive.
Last time I checked, a browser, be it EI, FireFox or Opera had NOTHING to do with content… put another way, all browsers are boring as hell UNTIL you go on the internet with them to actually see a web site. I don’t understand this whole argument and to say the video sucks is an understatement. The only thing I see of viral potential in all this is people realizing how bloated firefox has become with each successive build.
Jon
http://buzvia.com – Share Influence
Wow, I really wish the benefit song joke would just die. I felt that way a few months back when My Name Is Earl tried the gag and I feel more strongly about it now. This kind of parody was last funny in 1988.
OMG! Cancer is teh funny!
i just got this release for tay – damn he really will pimp diapers!
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – January 7, 2007 – Tay Zonday and Waterfall Mobile announced today the successful launch of Zonday’s direct-to-consumer mobile community powered by Waterfall Mobile’s Msgme platform. Zonday’s fans can text TAY to 67463 to join for free and then purchase official Chocolate Rain and Internet Dream ringtones, learn and interact with Tay himself, and even purchase Zonday wallpapers. Fans can also visit http://www.tayzonday.com or http://www.mysp...e.com/tayzonday to sign up as well as preview the ringtones.
Nominated this year for “Favorite User-Generated Video” for the People’s Choice Awards, Zonday is a bona fide YouTube phenomenon. One of only 100 users who belong to the YouTube partner program, his videos have generated over 15 million views. His unique voice is frequently compared to James Earl Jones, Barry White, Paul Robeson and Brad Roberts.
“Tay is a shining example of how the web can create unprecedented relationships between artists and fans by exposing music to a huge audience,” said Daman Bahner, Zonday’s personal manager. “With Waterfall’s Msgme platform, we extended our reach into the mobile channel. In minutes, we developed and deployed our mobile strategy enhancing the fan’s ability to engage with Tay and his music while also creating significant revenue opportunities.”
“Waterfall’s technology empowers any media owner to launch a mobile campaign without any infrastructure or training,” said Matt Silk, Executive Vice President of Waterfall Mobile. “With Msgme, the mobile channel joins the Internet as a marketing channel for everyone regardless of whether you are a Fortune 500 brand, start up or individual with an innovative property.”
Zonday will be performing this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and has been featured in print media such as The Los Angeles Times, The Toronto Star, Yahoo! News, E! Online, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune’s Redeye, The Minneapolis Star Tribune and PEOPLE Magazine. His television appearances include VH1’s “Best Week Ever,” G4TV’s “Attack Of The Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” CNN’s “Saturday Newsroom” and CW’s “Online Nation.” His television features include NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly” and ABC’s “I-Caught.” He has interviewed with radio’s “The Opie & Anthony Show,” “The Playboy Morning Radio Show,” and dozens of other regional broadcasts in the United States, Europe and the Pacific.
horrible, firefox is now officially a mess
Thats Cool
Regards,
Muddabir
http://www.xperts.net.pk
* 21% less likely to be a sales representative or agent at their current place of business.
This is the most hilariously ironic statistic in there.
I’d also think that maybe they need to work on making Firefox crash less often and use less memory, instead of making stupid videos. I love Firefox, but it’s getting worse with every release, and pretty much the only reasons I haven’t jumped ship are simple laziness, and Firebug.
This seems loosely based on the “We are the World” concept, highlighting exactly why this internet generation will sit idly watching each other watch 2girls1cup while the world gets flushed down the toilet.
Pathetic.
Tay Zonday is the definition of luck meeting opportunity… he has a great voice, exceptionally talented and thanks to the internet – a worldwide audience without costing him a dime in marketing nor payola. He is viral videos at its best… this firefox video is viral videos at their worst. If you have to call your video “viral”, then it isn’t “viral” anymore but a wannabe.
Jon
http://buzvia.com – Share Influence
Firefox is a piece of crap. Ditto for IE (BIGGER piece of…)
Nuff said.
Its creating buzz so its working…I quite like it.
I Love firefox…..
Oh god, I love firefox, and I know nobody who uses IE7
but this is LAME!!!!
No matter how viral it gets, even if it beats the numa guy or brookers, but for gods sake, don’t embarras us firefox fans like this!
ASA DOTZLER, WHERE ARE YOU TO CLEAN THIS MESS!!!
“secret viral”… that makes a lot of sense.
If this wasn’t posted up on TC (likely paid for), who would know/care about it?
What an embarrassment! MS could not have done a better job themselves to create such brand-damaging collateral. Yikes!
If everyone here is so down on Firefox and Explorer, what alternatives might you offer? Besides Opera, which someone mentioned above…? Help a skater out.
So, videos are fun, but code talks. I have been a firefox user for years, but now I just assume that at some point in the next few days I will have to force it to quit and hope that when it “resumes” my session it will have the tabs I want. On a Mac.
Fix Firefox. Then brag.
Disclosure: yes, I was on the IE4 team. But that was a long time ago, baby. The keyboard I’m typing on says “Macbook.”
Not my kind. I think I’ll pass.
some of the statistics are in bad taste.
if mozilla firefox users are less likely to live with someone with breast cancer, it’s probably because they are mostly men, and are also NOT getting any.
that’s the only thing i find funny about the breast cancer statistic mozilla is using in its viral campaign.
Dear skater,
it’s not about a better option, it’s about the sadness that all the options suck.
I could see this making people stick with IE, Maxthon, or Opera. It’s mildly funny but a bit too awkward (and maybe condescending to some). Tay Zonday was the only redeeming one in the video. They would’ve been much better off paying him alone to create a humorous song/video about Firefox.
Mozilla should fix the insane memory bloating of FF before asking people to “rise up.”
The clip from the Craig Ferguson show is actually kind of funny.
At least CBS is getting some free advertising.
thank you to all the people pointing out the memory issues
god knows how many forums and blog comments around the interwebs have focused on this issue, and yet they spend money on marketing this flawed product. FIX THE MEMORY LEAKS DAMMIT.
I’m not big on these comments, but this has really angered me.
“* 33% less likely to live with others suffering from high cholesterol.
* 24% less likely to live with others suffering from heart disease.
* 38% less likely to live with others suffering from breast cancer.”
That is just so carelessly un-funny… and not in any way relevant to anything which firefox is supposed to represent.
Mozilla, if you read this, you just lost a user. I hear Safari is faster anyway.
r.e. questions about memory – Mozilla has been working on memory use for a very long time. Firefox 3 (in Beta2 now) includes a large number of improvements to memory usage. Some details about this and memory work dating back to 2001 or so:
http://blog.pav...rgot-about-you/
Really bad tate.
I agree – ‘everything sucks’. Firefox, Opera, IE – all of them. That’s why I’m going to stop using all these free programs that provide me with so much entertainment and go and do something that doesn’t suck like…. hang on have to use my browser to find something.
There is only one thing worse than releasing an arse-clenchingly awful ‘viral’ campaign so bad it that people find out about it through the press, and that is not releasing an arse… no, hang on.
Borderline offensive.
“23% less likely to have cancer.” – in the big long list.
That just isn’t funny.
As a Firefox user who *has* cancer, I’m less than amused.
And how the hell are boredom and cancer even remotely connected?
wtf @ disease jokes?
Come on, mozilla… ever since they set up a for-profit
…they’ve gone downhill.
yay for finishing comments.
This is Paul Kim, VP of marketing for Mozilla. I want to apologize to anyone who was upset or offended by some of the stats on the not yet final website for this campaign. The list Techcrunch referenced was posted without a final review by Mozilla and wasn’t intended to be published as is. We’re working right now to correct this on the site, which goes live in a final form later today.
Ditto on the “statistics in poor taste” comments.
What is this, reverse-effect marketing?
Paul, these are just a few of the “facts” I copied from the live version of http://www.figh...nstboredom.org/
23% less likely to have cancer.
25% less likely to have breast cancer.
15% less likely to have cancer.
20% less likely to live with others suffering from cancer.
17% less likely to live with others suffering from cancer.
I stopped here; there might be even more. If it wasn’t intended to be published, why is it posted on the site?
Zachary: There is no way we would have gone live with a site that mocks cancer victims if there had been a review of these stats beforehand. Something went seriously wrong with our content development process, and I’m working to clean this up now. The site is up now for testing purposes, but should have been kept behind password authentication until we were ready to open it up. Regardless of these issues on our end, the main thing is to say that I take responsibility for the situation, and again, apologize to anyone who was upset by this.
secretly? they told you did’nt they