Big Brands Shake Up Facebook and YouTube

Peter Claridge
August 8, 2014 • 2 min read
Updated on September 19, 2019
Throw the 12 month marketing plan out the window. We live in a world where the next big thing already happened and by the time a brand has got the permission (damn those killjoy lawyers!) to do something it’s already yesterday’s news. Harlem Shake, which isn’t actually the real Harlem Shake dontcherknow, hit the social airwaves in early February. By the time most brands had woken up about it, the hipsters of the world were already sneering at how totally 5 minutes ago these brands are. Still, that wasn’t before my 16 year old cousin and tens of thousands of others uploading their own versions.
However. There are some brands that seem to have rounded up all their lawyers, shoved them in to the boardroom and showing them John Grisham movies on loop to keep them out of the creative process. These brands were able to capitalize on the Harlem Shake while the general population was still going ermagherd, that is, like, so cool. To find out which brands were able to best leverage the Harlem Shake craze, Unmetric scoured its database of over 6,000 brands. Now, in conjunction with the awesome folks over at Shorty Awards, we’re proud to bring you the chart that really matters (and the one you’ve really been waiting for): Which Social Media Managers Executed the Harlem Shake the Best?

My personal favorite is the Topshop models wiggling about…Err, sorry, so my girlfriend has just emailed to tell me that my favorite is definitely not the Topshop models, but rather the Red Bull sky dive Harlem Shake. So yeah, shaking around at 8,000 ft, what a video! I think the only way to beat this video is to have the astronauts from the ISS doing their own Harlem Shake with a cameo from Curiosity. What do you think?