Does Viral Video Translate to the Bottom Line? Ask Weezer

Do viral videos actually sell product? Yes if you're Weezer, whose video of their new single, Pork and Beans, has been viewed more than 10 million times (counting all the versions online), including nearly nine million views on the band's official YouTube channel. Those downloads translated to Billboard Top 100 charts within weeks.

What made the video go viral? Virals! The video is a collection of Internet memes from Numa Numa to Chocolate Rain, Evolution of Dance, Blendtec, Miss Teen South Carolina Answers a Question, and The Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments.

It's a marketing coup for the quirky band, and should also be a wake-up call for all the agency types who are endlessly scratching their heads (and other body parts) about metrics.

You wouldn't know the geeky memes if you weren't, well, a little geeky yourself. The video celebrates the sometimes weird individualism of its stars with a duet between Tay Zonday and Weezer guitarist Brian Bell, and shoe-obsessed drag queen Liam “Kelly” Sullivan showing a Rubik’s cube champion that he can solve the puzzle in under 10 seconds and lots more in jokes. The song's anthem: “I’m gonna do the things that I wanna do / I ain’t got a thing to prove to you.”

Originally, the band let anyone embed the video anywhere, but the embed code has been removed from the official video. Now it's back, on the Polydor channel - their record company. Smart move!

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