You may have seen the video on our Youtube channel or the home page of David promoting the Firefly Toothbrush from the Dr Fresh company. 

We were approached by Dr Fresh in July about working together on a project to promote the Firefly. (His daughter is a big D.A.D fan.) They had some success promoting brand awareness via Youtube and Facebook but this was a whole new thing for them. A great example of businesses attempting to utilize new media.

After throwing some ideas back and forth we decided to see if David and I to come up with a video on our own that would work first. We filmed it on our own with my new Kodak Zi8 (not bad for a sub $200 camera eh? no we don't have a deal w them.) Edited it with iMovie, so easy I could do it.

I tried to keep it as natural as possible. Of course there are things you want to say when promoting something like this but I let David try and come up with the words on his own. For the record "Disco Mode" was my idea! We had a blast doing it. All told, I spent less than 10 hours total for the whole thing.

We happened to be on vacation in Georgia and I used some of the footage for the day in the life segments. You are also introduced to my son William, who is 4 years old but thinks he's a teenager. He loved being part of the video and did a great job.

While we certainly saw the financial benefit potential of the D.A.D soon after it went viral, we have been very careful with what we associated it with. There have been a few projects we have turned down because it wasn't appropriate.

The partnership with Dr Fresh was perfect. If fit our criteria that included liking the product (boys already had one), had a good message (dental care for kids, a huge hidden issue in the usa, esp with poor kids), and benefitting our charity efforts (Operation Smile received $2000 from both parties as part of the agreement)

So far the project has met our goals. Making it go viral was never an expectation. Don't get me wrong, we want views but we know it wont come close to D.A.D. The whole point is to get the word out about the Firefly brand. With 30,000 plus views and media mentions in the hundreds during the first week, Id say we did pretty well.

We have enjoyed our initial project with Dr Fresh and hope there will be more in future. I would love to buy a "David After Dentist" toothbrush at Walmart or Target soon.

What do you say Dr Fresh?

David's Dad

Click for more photos.

David and I had the opportunity to attend ROFLCON 2 at MIT in Boston this past weekend. We had a blast. It was a symposium of sorts on Internet culture and memes. Academia meets viral videos if you will.

These are some of the pictures we took. I hope to have video up soon from our panel. David did very well for his first time.

D.A.D.