This piece was part of our final production for Gatorade: a carefully-staged campaign designed to break virally and build an audience with three remarkable ‘is that real?’ scenarios. After building interest on-line, we would reintroduce them as television spots with the tagline “Never Underestimate the Power of Superior Hydration.” The notion was simple: shoot remarkable actions in a totally matter-of-fact manner, then seed them in syndicated video outlets on the web in hopes of capturing viewer interest.

Unfortunately, after production wrapped, Gatorade decided to move the brand in a different direction and shelved the campaign. The work was dead.
But then something peculiar happened.

Someone—and scout’s honor it was not anyone at Element79—quietly placed our viral piece on YouTube where people discovered it. And talked about it. And passed it on. Because “Ball Girl” is a prime example of a viral video: it’s fascinating and forwardable. Follow the links at the right to see a second ‘corroborating’ video we originally planned to post on YouTube; this one ostensibly taken with a cell phone. We’ve also posted the final TV spot that never aired so you can see how we intended to revise that content. And finally,read some of the stories this viral video sparked with absolutely no media investment.

We couldn’t think of a better farewell gift to our good friends at Gatorade; it’s a remarkable brand we were honored to advertise.