What I hear you saying is...

Tiger's certainly got the star power, but as Laura points out, this is a completely unbelievable image. No sane person can picture Tiger taking his super-model girlfriend out for a spin in a Buick without some hallucinogenic aid. It's like Kimberly-Clark resurrecting Kurt Cobain to shill for Depends undergarments.

Anyhow, in a similar vein, I got the same uncomfortable feeling while reading this NYTimes article about Bayer aspirin trying to 'get jiggy with it' by creating an on-line game to promote their Aleve brand of pain killer. No celebrities involved, but definitely an attempt to try and harness some kind of ephemeral cool factor.

Aleve is arthritis medicine. And if memory serves, it is (not surprisingly) branded like Ben Gay or Old Spice --probably better associated with "Matlock" than "Matt Damon". So I can see why it might be tempting to try and expand into a younger demographic.

But gawd what a train-wreck.

Their site is more awkward than a slow song at a junior-high school dance. Email a friend, fake comments, links to other splogs, video, donation to charity...etc. Every conceivable instrument of viral marketing is present on this site, yet in toto none of it remotely compelling.

Is this really the best they could do?

Here's a crazy, irresponsible thought: Canvas every skate park in America, and hand out free samples of Alleve with your site URL printed on the package. Take videos of kids wiping out and taking spills, and then post them on an Aleve sponsored web-site and have them vote on the best. Give the top 10 winners $1,000 in skate gear and a lifetime supply of Aleve.

Ok, nothing too radical here (although probably illegal), but that's after 25 seconds of thought and 2 bottles of Munich's finest. One would think that the brilliant minds of Madison avenue can do better than "The Alleviator".

But as Marksonland points out, the mindset of advertisers is so deep in the groove that trying to understand the rationale of their behavior is often befuddling.

Ah, the irony of a "drug" company failing at a "viral" marketing effort.

I'm still speechless and a little numb from the "Alleviator" so I'll close this post with a bonus Journey Clip:

Git yer Neil Schon on!