Wednesday, July 25, 2007

H-P looks to control parents' minds


Hewlett-Packard is launching a campaign it's calling "viral" (though the proof, of course, is in the pudding), to, um, help teens convince their parents to buy them HPs for school. Under the heading, "The Society for Parental Mind-Control," it includes the opporunity to send "ESP emails" to parents suggesting potential laptop purchases for their kids and so forth. There are the obligatory "viral" films, and although the one above isn't included at the campaign site controltheminds.com, it appears to be part of the campaign. No mention in the release of Goodby, Silverstein—just a quote from Brendan Malloy of Black Dog Films, which shot the films. UPDATE: The campaign is the work of McCann-Erickson, San Francisco, which also does some work for HP.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The press release says the work is from McCann Erickson/SF. Did I miss a big account move or does this press relase need to be fact checked?

Catharine P. Taylor said...

Thanks David. didn't even notice the McCann reference. I'm trying to email HP to clarify ... though I'm not sure the videos are funny enough to be Goodby;)