Definitely fake- camera work is way too nice.

Totally fake. No question.

Also, look at the linked website, donthaveameltdown.com. I think it's supposed to be funny. My tolerance for dumb humor is low today, though.

That was my thought - the editing. But it could've been used for evidence against him, which would naturally be edited. But given that, how did it get released? And what about the sound - on security cams? Hmm. And the coffee thing is just a bit too much.
Anyway, if it's fake, I'd still be interested in learning how they went about doing it.

Totally fake. The sound is way too clear -- even when he's speaking in at a relatively normal volume level, his voice still comes through a lot clearer than anyone else's. And it sounds the same, quality-wise and volume-wise, on each cam. And are most hotel security cameras in color? Maybe they are, but most of the cams I see are in b&w. All that, and it just seems like he's acting.

I agree. I only got through a few seconds and could tell it was fake. The guy is clearly on a mic or something, in a hotel lobby he wouldn't be so clear over the other people... especially when shot from that distance.

And no, security cameras are not that good.

It's an Cisco ad. If you have the patience, follow the link and watch the almost-but-not-quite-amusing flash video, which leads in turn to a regular advert.

Hmmm. About 1-2 years ago, when I was still working in marketing a corporate job (BIG corporation), there was a lot of buzz about "guerrilla" marketing. At that point, the field marketers were big on the idea, but the HQ marketers were still focused on tried-and-true methods. I imagine this buzz wasn't limited to the company I worked for -- whether we were behind the curve, right with it, or ahead of it, I don't know. At any rate, I can see it taking about this long for the buzz to really catch-on at an HQ level, to cross the legal hurdles, and to gather data points from demographic surveys & phenomena like lonelygirl15 (or whatever it was, I never paid much attention to it). All of which is just a long way of saying that I wonder whether or not we're going to start a lot more of this sort of thing from large corporations.

I wonder whether or not we're going to start a lot more of this sort of thing from large corporations

Uh, we already have been.

RV salesman meltdown. Real.

Oh, that is so definatly a frickin' ad people.

guerrilla marketing = these days often illegal or shady ways of marketing designed to catch target market off guard. Think spray painted sidewalks, fake street signs and those sort of outdoor stunts. I once launched a soda-pop at a music festival by throwing hundreds and more hundreds of Brand X cans all over the festival area - the food and drink people at the festival (all different businesses) took notice of that brand which 'the other guys must be selling craploads of' and decided to stock up. That's guerrilla marketing. (go ahead, hate me.)

Viral marketing = once the name of self-replicating 'ads' online such as the .sig of any given hotmail "free email at hotmail.com" now means funny films, games and phenomena sch as Lonelygirl5 - basically anything that the online community decides to pass on to each other is viral - and doesn't have to be an ad at all.

"Ambient advertising" = often confused with guerrilla, ads designed to be in and possibly blend in to specific places. The Cairo Lipton tea bushes (scroll a wee bit here) are an example.

Ok, I'll stop talking ads, but thanks for letting me I have such a horrible job lately.. You know those "model to the left product to the right" 'ads', yeah, I do that. Ugh.

Uh, we already have been.

Like what? Seriously -- I'm generally not aware of these things unless someone points them out, and I'm curious. I know some movie franchises do this, but what other corporations along the lines of Cisco have done this as a means of luring someone into watching a real ad for a new product or service?

Marketers feverish over viral ads -- 2005

And heck, "Bad Day" goes back to 1999.

About the only thing I'd say is really new here is a growing mainstream respectability. It no longer has this "guerrilla" edginess to it, because things like YouTube are now so pervasive. By the same token, the virals are more obvious, so there's an increasing tendency toward stealth virals. But really, ads like this hotel one exist right on the edge of stealth. The idea isn't to get the message past the consumer's personal mental filters per se, it's to get the consumer to willingly turn off his filters and enjoy the question of whether he's experiencing something real or viral.

Thanks, stilicho. I think you're absolutely right about getting the consumer to willingly turn off filters. Although I wasn't aware of the chicken thing, I guess what seemed significant to me is that this Cisco viral ad shifts into what seems (to me) to be somewhat new territory. From an audience comprised of entertainment & fast food consumers to an audience comprised of, for lack of a better term, "business people." Certainly there's considerable overlap between the two, but marketing toward the latter is, I think, traditionally less "risky."

Generally you can tell almost instantly in this sort of thing by the quality of the cameras, and the fake camera distortion they throw in there. Also the framing is pretty perfect. Mind you I've seen quite a few `caught on security cam' videos (no no, not the porn type ones) and they generally have no sound or poor sound, bad framing, bad frame rates and so on.