Now you see it . . . now you don't! Invisible Mercedes zooms up viral video chart
There's a lot of invisibility going about these days. Last week we had the group Invisible Children crashing though the 100,000,000 barrier with their video about Kony,the bandit leader in Africa. Today we have the invisible Mercedes.
The 90-second spot, from the Jung von Matt agency in Hamburg takes us on a fascinating road trip through Germany aboard a Mercedes experimental car called the F-Cell Hydrogen vehicle.
One side of the car is covered with LEDs at a reported cost of $250,000. A high-end Canon digital camera is on the other side. The camera captures images that are then "mirrored" in lights via the LEDs.
"It's like a moving billboard…only more immediate, " says Adweek. "The images are a bit grainy, especially when the car is moving , but it's still pretty impressive."
The spot - with almost nine million views so far - promotes the zero-emissions technology allowed by the fuel cell, which produces only water vapour after burning hydrogen as fuel. Mass-marketing of such an advanced power source for cars is said to be as little as three years away.
The ad, promoting a car "invisible to the environment," makes it seem user-friendly, if only for 90 seconds, says the mag.