A particularly zesty Brazilian soccer fan tweeted “Cala Boca Galvão” (“Shut up Galvao” – a knock at the Brazilian play-by-play announcer on Rede Globo) and people found it funny.  So funny in fact that it became one of the top trending topics on Twitter.  Because it became a top trending topic, people who had no idea what it meant launched inquiries.  At that point, it was in the hands of anyone who dared to mobilize the hot trend towards a clueless public.

It became -

A rumored Lady Gaga single (6 digit views – and hundreds of similar videos)

A campaign to save the (non existent) Galvao Bird and promised .10 cents per tweet for those who tweeted the phrase. (million views)

No marketing department was tasked with this.  No one benefited from the phrase itself.  But ultimately, the conversations around this generated mentions of The World Cup. So in essence….we actually benefited.  This is a great example of how the Twitter platform can be used, especially when it doesn’t reek of a paid effort.  There are probably thousands of instances where this doesn’t work.  But, probably because we didn’t do them.

ALSO – Check out this dude reviewing the shit out of summer movies