It’s not that common for advertisements to go viral, but it happens often enough that it’s not a phenomenon. However, what everyone loves to see are the funny behind-the-scenes shots that show all of the bloopers. A few years ago, a Mitsubishi dealership went viral after an epic commercial filming shoot that showed their white bear mascot repeatedly falling down on the ice. The general manager of the dealership said that he was astonished that it went viral and he’s not even sure how it happened. Richard Herod III was in the outtake video with the mascot that was shared by the likes of Bette Midler.
The blooper video got posted to Facebook in December just for the purpose of giving folks a few holiday laughs. That weekend it only had about 200K views, and Richard says their videos have never gotten more than 5K or 10K views. However, after the first of the year, it had gotten up to 900K when Bette Midler shared it. After that, the video got more than a million views on Facebook every day for several days. The video on YouTube has more than three million views to date. Richard said he’s not aware of any car dealership having a video go viral like this, especially a bloopers outtake video.
YouTube
He said he received phone calls from journalists all over the world, including Switzerland, Australia, Germany, and the U.K. He was even featured on a British radio show and the video aired on the Today show and Good Morning America. In the video, you can see the dealership’s mascot, a white polar bear, slipping and falling several times on the ice. At one point, he faceplanted on the ice in a huge way. The bear was supposed to fall, but no one expected the faceplant.
YouTube
Watch this hilarious video below.