Rick Roll: Will It Ever Stop?

I'd be willing to bet that almost all of us internet addicts have come into direct contact with the massive e-prank known as the "Rick Roll" in some form or another relatively recently. For those of you living under a rock for the past six months (joking, of course) "Rick Roll" is the term coined to explain a massive internet meme in which an web user is led by another to a certain website or video relevant to the topic at hand, only to end up watching the 1987 music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". It is the classic bait-and-switch: Victims are caught off guard into thinking that they will be reading about the latest gossip, or catching up on the latest news on the upcoming Halo video game, only to come face-to-face with Rick Astley's baritone voice, beige trench coat, and cheesy 80's dance moves. It is primarily used on internet message boards and forums (with an emphasis on video game and tech boards) since it allows the prankster to rick roll a large amount of visitors at a single time.

This trend has really caught steam in recent months - to the extent that news outlets like BBC and CNN has even caught up on all the hype: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2008/04/11/west.uk.rick.rolling.itn

Furthermore, the Youtube rendition of the Rick Roll has registered 10,559,752 hits as of the publishing of this post. An April 2008 survey by SurveyUSA, a publicity and marketing firm, estimated that over 18 million Americans have been rick rolled since the trend first began. Just two weeks ago, the New York Mets (my favorite baseball team BTW) rick roll'd a capacity Shea Stadium crowd of more than 40,000 after more than five million internet users requested that the Stadium play the song during the 8th inning. Rick Astley beat out a couple of other guys you might have heard of - Jon Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Billy Joel, etc. (and to boot, all of those guys are from the NY/NJ geographical region).

So what's to stop the Rick Roll? It has massive momentum and has become a huge viral success all over the web. While the humour factor of the rick roll is quite apparent, another obvious issue it brings up is the sheer power of viral/guerilla marketing. When 18 million people have been exposed to a single video at almost zero expense, it is hard for marketers and big business not to notice. In fact, marketers have already cashed in on its popularity - Sony SMG is banking in on the Rick Roll success as it plans to release a Rick Astley Greatest Hits CD by the end of the month. It is easy to see that while the Rick Roll has become a completely random, massive internet phenomenon, it also speaks volumes about the future of advertising and marketing. As the ultimate objective of marketing communications is to reach as many people as it can at the highest frequency possible - all at the lowest expense - Rick Rolling definitely fits the criteria of a successful marketing device. There is a common-held notion that publicity and PR are slowly overtaking advertising as the primary form of marketing communications and Rick Rolling definitely supports that hypothesis.

This is not to say that advertising is completely dead - there are still a plethora of media that advertisers can take advantage of in many ways. However, I feel that traditional advertising is simply losing its edge to more cost-effective and high-reaching viral methods. Broadcast and Cable TV just aren't the dominant media that they were for so many years. Radio is non-existent with the exception of high-population regions and certain niche segments. And unfortunately a lot of people just don't have the time to pick up the newspaper and magazine as they did in years past. And it's mainly because people are on the go in this highly corporatized, fast-changing economy. This isn't the 1950's anymore where the entire family crowds around the TV and watches Ed Sullivan together as a whole. This is the 21st Century, where everything is digitized and people are everywhere and have things to do. The most effective means of catching a busy person's attention is by catching them off guard with something out of the ordinary, something that makes them break in stride while walking back to the office from Starbucks and gets them to think, "what in the HELL is that?!"

So the next time you're led into the latest Perez Hilton article or hottest YouTube video only to end up staring at Rick Astley's puffy red hair and extravagant back-up dancers, remember that the words "Never Gonna Give You Up" hold a bit more meaning than just as a nostalgic 80's pop tune.

And for those of you interested a televised CNBC business analysis of the Rick Roll phenomenon, click here