The popular YouTube channel, Epic Meal Time, has signed a TV deal with FYI for 16 episodes of Epic Meal Empire. I started watching these guys a bit more than a year ago, and I found their YouTube channel hilarious. The excessive amounts of food used in their recipes, along with excessive amounts of Jack Daniels, is what made every episode funnier than the last. Their constant innovation in creating food monstrosities that I couldn’t even dream of, kept me coming back for more.

Although Morenstein, the main character, believes that “moving from YouTube to TV [is] a natural progression,” I hope they don’t lose their original ways, and start creating poor content under the new show. At first glance, the lack of Jack Daniels will definitely take away part of their “brand image,” and I personally don’t see that as a good thing.

Epic Meal Time is a great example of how new media is converging with old media, and it will be interesting to see if it’s able to capture the same audience through both channels. I will most likely give the show a shot because I enjoy their YouTube channel so much, I just hope this doesn’t affect the frequency or quality of their current content.

For more information, check out Marketing Mag’s article on it.

A few days ago I was browsing Reddit, as I usually do in my spare time, and I ran across a hilarious article. A guy decided to start a Facebook advertising campaign, but with a little twist, his target audience consisted of one person; his roommate.

When I read his blog spot, I found it very funny, but it was also genius. He used the functions available in Facebook to be able to target only his friend, but the actual ads he created also took a lot of thought. He didn’t want his friend to know that he was making these, so he made ads that made it seem like the roommate “wouldn’t feel targeted-even though he was being targeted.” He used information about his roommate that was easily found on his social media, as well as minor details that only he knew from being his roommate. In one example, he made an advertisement that mentioned his roommates ability to swallow swords, but not being able to swallow pills.

Although this was merely a prank, it shows how effective advertising can be if you know a lot about your target audience. I personally rarely notice ads, but you can bet that if they were this specific, I would notice them. I love this post because of its simplicity, and the use of humor to illustrate how powerful advertising can be, as well as the tools available to follow through with a plan like this.

If you would like to check out the full post, and how the whole plan was executed, head over to his blog post.