Video advertisements that depict people having extreme reactions to discovering Firefox are attracting a growing online audience.
The short videos show people getting so entranced by Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation's open-source browser, that they do things like scream loud enough to crack office walls and become distracted enough to take a bite out of a cell phone, as if it were a candy bar.
"The idea is to be funny and get people in interested in what Firefox is."
--Tristan Nitot President, Mozilla Europe
The Mozilla Foundation said Thursday that the campaign had racked up nearly half a million hits in less than a week.
The campaign was launched last week by Mozilla Europe, the European affiliate of the Mozilla Foundation. It is already experiencing "very significant daily growth," despite a low-key launch from the blog of Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe.
"This is just the beginning," Nitot said. "I only posted it on my personal blog, and it's already spreading nicely. We wanted to start small, as we were concerned that servers wouldn't be able to handle the load."
The videos had registered 300,000 hits by the end of the weekend, Nitot said, and were nearing 500,000 hits by Tuesday--the latest figures that were available on Thursday. The videos can be viewed at Funnyfox.org, a site set up by Mozilla Europe with help from the Pozz Agency.
"The idea is to be funny and get people in interested in what Firefox is," Nitot said.
Nitot said that Mozilla Europe did not have the money to pay for an advertisement on television, so instead the group decided to host the videos online and encourage Firefox fans to spread word of them by e-mail.
Firefox in the Times (click to view)
Previous Firefox marketing campaigns included print ads in The New York Times and a German national newspaper, both of which were paid for by the open-source community. The Mozilla Foundation has also encouraged local marketing activities through the Spread Firefox Web site.
Programmers are not zombies - they need breaks too.
P.S. As to 8586739583769049 bugs, the fact that you can get this number freely from bugzilla, doesn't mean that competitors have less bugs. Probably they have more. They'll just never let you know that. Unlike open source Mozilla.
I just don't get it. The execution was polished, but the message?
Use Firefox and be frustrated until you scream and crash your workplace or have your head fall off?
Just about the only one that made sense was the eating of the mobile - being entranced and browsing. But even that one would be more appropriate for let's say a site that has captivating material. The art direction was very shallow.
BTW, I like Firefox very much, despite these movies.
How does screaming loud enough to crack walls get people to download your browser? That says to me that they're so frustrated with their lackluster and utterly incomplete browsing experience that they're causing structural damage.
Too many people these days moan about things instead of just having fun! The videos were put together just for a laugh for crying-out-loud. Lighten up!
These videos are just plain stupid. There's nothing worse than watching crap and having someone else say, "They're funny! Just watch them and laugh! Lighten up!". Sorry, but my levity and wit respond best to intelligent humor; and these videos are lacking.
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How about spending a bit more effort on fixing the remaining 83243934289347934203429803 bugs in your browser rather than pushing PR?
This is Gold leader; **STAY ON TARGET**.
Programmers are not zombies - they need breaks too.
P.S. As to 8586739583769049 bugs, the fact that you can get this number freely from bugzilla, doesn't mean that competitors have less bugs. Probably they have more. They'll just never let you know that. Unlike open source Mozilla.
Use Firefox and be frustrated until you scream and crash your
workplace or have your head fall off?
Just about the only one that made sense was the eating of the
mobile - being entranced and browsing. But even that one
would be more appropriate for let's say a site that has
captivating material. The art direction was very shallow.
BTW, I like Firefox very much, despite these movies.