This Is a Generic Brand Video
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- March 21, 2014
| This Is a Generic Brand Video | |
|---|---|
 Still from beginning of video | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 2 minutes 49 seconds |
This Is a Generic Brand Video was an advertising video created by Dissolve,[1] written by Kendra Eash[2] on McSweeney's, and narrated by Dallas McClain.[3]
Described as a hilarious ad poem that is "every cliché that ever was."[4]
"Using a specific ratio of Asian people to black people to women to white men, we want to make sure we represent your needs and interests – or at least a version of your skin colour – in our ads."[2]
This comedic video parodied the advertising industry and its commercial clichés while advertising its own company as a new entrant in the stock footage market.
This video won the 2015 Shorty Award for Best in B2B[5] and was nominated for the 2016 Webby Awards.
Dissolve website visitors increased by 9x the week the video launched while user signups and revenue also increased by 6x.[5]
As of February 27, 2026[update], it has over 2.9 million views[6] on YouTube and 660,000 views on Vimeo.[7]
The video also received wide online media coverage from magazines and news article websites.
AdAge reported this brand video as "tragically funny"[8] while Fast Company labeled it "The Greatest Thing About The Absolute Worst In Advertising".[9]
Time commented that the video covered all the advertising trends in under three minutes.[10]
Other media sites such as Adweek, Vanity Fair, Forbes, and The Globe and Mail all shared this video.