Just wanted to alert you to this brilliant piece of viral marketing: Carmen Has A Crush On You.

Without ruining the surprise too much, it asks you to put the name, phone number, and picture of a friend of yours into a simple webpage with the lure of playing a joke on your friend.

It then uses a clever bit of technology to instantly create a youtube video where Carmen Electra spills the beans on her new relationship with your friend, including his name tattooed on her, a picture of him that she keeps in her wallet, and a follow up phone call.

The reason this is going to be so effective is several reasons:

• The technology is new enough that is still has the shock value. Most people have never seen anything like it and will wonder how its possible.
• By including someone you know in the video, it is much more likely to be forwarded to your circle of friends. The joke is personalized for everyone.

You notice that the one thing she couldn’t do on the film was actually say the person’s name. The technology for text-to-speech is getting much better but isn’t quite there yet. They seemed to get around it though.

Kudos to whoever made this. It is one of the most innovative viral marketing pieces I’ve seen in a long time.