Two weeks ago during the NCAA championship game Directv had an AMAZING ad.  I’ve been scouring “the net” ever since trying to find it.  It’s part of a series of commercials directed by Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman) and features the usual cast of characters from his films.  You can find the other ads here (all of which are funny) but my all time favorite is the one that came on during the game.

Why is it so funny?  The first irony of the situation is that John Michael Higgins who plays the cable executive in the ad has previously played a hollywood publicist in Guest’s last movie (”For Your Consideration“).   One of the stellar lines of the film in a discussion about something on the “internet” he responds with “the internet, now that’s the one with e-mail right?”  It features that line in the preview.  So anyhow, with that backdrop I find it particularly humorous that he is the executive touting everyone to “go viral” and “blog it out.”  Amazing.  I guess I also find it entertaining when put in the context of recent studies about the influence of blogs:

Marketers need to better understand the changing dynamics of the consumer media market and develop new marketing plans that integrate new media to replace the erosion of traditional media for influence to purchase. Marketers who can’t tap new media options for their influence to purchase will suffer a decline in advertising ROI.

The sad part of the whole thing is that I bet there are a LOT of presentations very similar to this ad based on some executive reading the above quote and telling his team that they need to”go viral.”  I have actually sat through one or two of them.  Hopefully you find it as funny as we do.  Kudos to DirecTv for a killer ad.