It could've been worse, but GotVMail ended up with one of the more positive "awards" on Adweek's article entitled, "The Year of the Freak." Author Tim Nudd named some of the freakiest ad campaigns of 2008, one of which was GotVMail's viral "ad campaign" featuring Gary Busey (I put that in quotes because it wasn't really advertising our company), which Nudd called the "best celebrity endorsement."
The thing about GotVMail's viral videos featuring Gary Busey is that it wasn't an ad campaign, and it wasn't a celebrity endorsement. We wanted to think of it as an opportunity for GotVMail to communicate with those who share our sense of humor, or just our general fascination with the creature that is Gary Busey. Since Gary shares his first name with our company mascot, and so many of us at GotVMail were fans of Busey's insane antics (one of our favorites is Busey's ability to draw new meaning out of words like "team"--together everyone achieves more--but that's just one example) on VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club," (for all of you recent Gary Busey converts, this was before his more recent "Celebrity Rehab" series) we just felt like it was the right fit.
No, our Busey ads didn't really explain exactly what GotVMail was, but that wasn't the point. Instead, we were trying to get across that this guy is insane, but sometimes, when you're excited about something, that's how you should be. And it's true the spots were totally bizarre, but the whole point is that everything shouldn't be the same, whether that's business or human behavior. Entrepreneurs are successful because they think outside the box--and the Gary Busey spots were all about doing just that. And if after watching a few of the viral videos you're curious about what GotVMail is, there's a little something called the world wide web or internet where you can check our website to find out what we do.
