The popular internet celebrity Overly Attached Girlfriend recently made a guest appearance on Samsung’s channel SamsungMemoryForAll. This might have seemed like a smart marketing move, but the product that Samsung is trying to sell seems to be overshadowed by Laina herself.
This popular personality originated from a Justin Bieber contest that the Youtuber, Laina, was trying to win. After uploading her rendition of Bieber’s song Boyfriend, her face became an image macro for being an overly attached girlfriend. Appearing on reddit, 4chan and 9gag, she skyrocketed to becoming an internet celebrity thanks to the power of social media.
The ad begins with Laina in what is seemingly her room, only for it to transform into different scenarios that correlate with the lyrics of her song. The MV set physically shifts covering almost all uses of the computer:pirating songs, social networking, porn, banking, and viruses. While all the scenarios move in the background, Laina serenades us with a creepy song where she threatens the viewer and encourages them to buy Samsung. The product is actually written in small, small letters somewhere in the end of the video.
The Good
Seeing that the latest view count is 2,044,221 views, there is no doubt that Samsung (or Laina?) has gained publicity for their collaboration. In the past, Samsung rarely gets over a million views for their videos, other than a few Galaxy S3 ads. They’ve also made the ad quite entertaining to most viewers who have nothing better to do but watch these comical videos. Rather than taking other approaches to selling a product, Samsung focused on making viewers laugh and bringing out the best of the internet meme. Last but not least, they tried to hide any advertisement-like qualities of the video. There are no links in the video description and barely any mention of Samsung until the end.
The Bad
The video was entertaining, but how effective was it as an ad? There has been some negative reaction on the internet against Laina herself. Since she started solo originally as a Youtuber, she is being labeled as a sellout for Samsung and using her popularity to cash in. As for the ad itself, some are saying that the message is blurry and distracted by Laina’s creepy serenade. The majority of the ad has no mention of what the product at all. The product is finally mentioned visually and by Laina, who tells you to buy “this” for her. She does not mention what this is, and the video pans to a background which has the Samsung Logo, SSD and 840. There is no mention of what product it is (laptop? computer? monitor? cellphone?) even at the end, but it is written in small letters under the brand. Laina leaves the viewers entertained, maybe laughing, but all in all confused about what she is trying to sell. For even more oblivious viewers, the ending just makes them angry, realizing that it is an ad for Samsung.
Even after watching the video, most people have no clue what she is selling. The article up to now is also written so that there is no mention of what Samsung product is being sold. From watching “Overly Attached Computer”, have you figured out what the ad is for without Googling?
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/memory-storage/MZ-7PD128BW
Samsung is trying to market their latest SSD 840 series. A SSD is a solid state drive which can be used for your computer to drastically increase the speed of performance. From gaming quality/ speed to boot up time, the SSD can deliver high speeds and reduce wait times.
