
At the end of September, Nathan Apodaca's car broke down while he was driving to his shift at the local potato factory.
This wasn't the first hurdle Apodaca had faced in 2020. The Idaho local was living in a caravan and at the time he was constantly dealing water and electricity outages.
When his car broke down, Apodaca, also known as @420Doggface208 on TikTok, took it in his stride. He pulled out his longboard and continued his journey to work.
During his ride, he recorded a 22-second TikTok video of himself, skateboarding down the road, lip-syncing to Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams', while sipping on a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry Juice.
The video immediately went viral and the #OceanSprayChallenge was born.
The original video has since amassed over 66 million views on TikTok.
What Apodaca could never have known, while he was casually recording the video, was that he was about to tap into the zeitgeist. His video was exactly what we needed after months of varying degrees of lockdown and rising levels of uncertainty and anxiety.
The 37-year-old also couldn't have known he was about to be at the centre of one of the most successful viral marketing campaigns of the decade.
On October 5, just a little over a week after the video began gaining traction, Fleetwood Mac frontman Mick Fleetwood joined TikTok and posted his own version, complete with the Ocean Spray bottle.
At 73, Mick Fleetwood is not your average TikTok user. He wouldn't have come across the video organically and while we can't say for sure what happened behind the scenes, it's feasible that TikTok's people got in touch with Fleetwood's people and they came up with a plan to keep the viral moment going.
On October 7, Ocean Spray gifted Apodaca a brand new car.
The seemingly wholesome move, however, came with a catch. The car was filled with bottles of Ocean Spray, ensuring their product was front and centre of any coverage of the moment.
And the colour of the car? A cranberry red.
On October 14, Fleetwood Mac frontwoman Stevie Nicks joined TikTok and p
Keryn Donnelly
Author
No Comments
Be the first to leave a comment