Marketing, YouTube, and feel the Brand love

This is the meanest thing I’ve seen a long while. Really cruel. Gob-smackingly evil. Vile. And absolutely friggin’ brilliant.

Schooled is (American I think) where you play practical jokes on each other the day back at school. Only this time, the teachers get their own back. I’m not saying anymore – watch the video and hang in there past the initial naff pranks to get to the main one.

Students at a New Jersey high school are tricked into believing their music department will be abolished if they do not pass a series of increasingly twisted, “state-mandated” tests.

The final prank is totally awesome.

The episode (CW TV showed it LIVE) and webisode (on YouTube and their site) is sponsored by Office Max as part of their Back To School promotional campaigns, but it’s very very well done, mostly because it was put together by The Eclipse Pod who knew to undersell to build the brand love. I imagine the TV version had more ads, but this YouTube one has those promo headers instead. The show aired a couple of weeks ago, and one of the YouTube videos (the shorter trailer) has 800k viewings.

I will say one thing about reality TV shows. They do the same thing for sacred cows that The Simpsons did. Remember when Dan Quayle (former US Vice President) called for more families like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons? Well this ain’t ‘Fame‘. It’s better. But mean, terribly mean. (I bet those kids won’t muck-up in class, like ever, again).

hat tip: The Toad