You might have been one of the millions of YouTube viewers who this weekend watched the hilarious, and of course "contagious," viral video in which a fake Prince Wills and soon-to-be-Princess Kate dance to East 17's "House of Love" as part of their wedding procession. The T-Mobile video, presumably shot via a cell phone, cleverly markets the product's video sharing capabilities with the catch phrase, "One's life is for sharing." (Such a clever contrast that is, having the usually staid royals actually be in the mood for a proper booty-shaking celebration). It's a fun romp I favorited and "liked" on my YouTube account, and which I posted on Facebook for my friends to see. Somewhere along the line, as it's supposed to work, my unthinking attempt at word of mouth must have caused someone to buy a T-Mobile phone. Such is the beauty of viral videos, at least hypothetically. They catch and engage our attention so much that we feel compelled to spread the word, convinced others we know will find them just as hilarious or significant or lovable as we did.

But buzz generated by a viral video is not necessarily the end-all be-all. I'm someone who, in my home life, has become desensitized to commercials. While surfing the Web and a pop-up ad appears as I make my way to a HuffPost article, my eyes have become trained, through many years of commercial annoyance, on the "close" button, never the ad itself. I fast-forward through DVR'ed shows, bulldozing through commercials without care for them. I've become so closed to product placements that I hardly consider myself "targetable" (which is too bad for advertisers, as I'm in that key 18-29 demo--sorry!). For an ad to capture my attention, it has to be so amazingly (almost impossibly) noteworthy that my mouth is literally agape. But even when that happens, there is still always one hobble:  Rarely do I ever make the connection to the product being marketed. So much of advertising has had to stray from "typical" means of grabbing our attention, that the ad's connection to its product may often seem flimsy at best. And if you can't make any coherent association to whatever it is that's being advertised, the ad becomes the primary attention-grabber itself, the unexpected termination point of the whole advertising campaign. As an example, the Old Spice Man commercials of last year were wildly popular, but the buzz surrounding the videos didn't necessarily translate to increased sales of the d....

The royal wedding entrance spoof I mention had me worked up over it, but it didn't necessarily make me want to be a T-Mobile customer. Just as the Old Spice commercials had me laughing, they didn't compel me to buy that particular deodorant brand. (Though credit is due to T-Mobile for the clever tie-in to their product, for still managing to keep a focused association between product and ad). I wonder, is it possible that we have become "immune," as it were, to even viral videos? If so, what new spreadable "diseases" can advertisers resort to now?