Eepybird
Encyclopedia
EepyBird is an entertainment company best known for creating the viral video "The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" which won the first ever Webby Award
for Viral Video in 2007 and, was named "Online Game Changer of the Decade" in December 2009 by the readers of GoViral.com as "the most significant online marketing campaign of the decade."
EepyBird describes itself as a company that explores, "how everyday objects can do extraordinary things."
Their video experiments also include the viral hits "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" and "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" Altogether, their videos have been viewed online over 60 million times and have won numerous awards, including two Webby Awards, two Webby "People's Voice" Awards, and two Emmy
nominations.
EepyBird was prominently featured in the 2009 Grammy Award winning Weezer
music video "Pork and Beans
".
. That performance culminated in a ten-bottle Coke & Mentos fountain.
Spurred on by the response of the live crowd, they then spent the next five months working on new effects and preparing a 101-bottle experiment modeled on the Bellagio
fountains in Las Vegas
. They filmed their big experiment, "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments: Experiment #137" on April 29, 2006 in a field in Buckfield, Maine.
On Monday morning, June 5, 2006, a producer from "The Late Show with David Letterman"
called and invited Voltz and Grobe to perform their piece on the Letterman show. Later that same week, Perfetti van Melle
(the makers of Mentos) called to offer their support. On Wednesday, June 7, 2006 All Things Considered
aired an interview with EepyBird.
In the first nine days after their website went live, Eepybird.com had over 2 million visitors. Within less than a year EepyBird's "Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" video had received more than 20 million viewers online. As of December, 2009 there have been over 60 million views of EepyBird videos online.
and Google
sponsored EepyBird's second viral video, "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect."
In this video EepyBird's two lab-coated scientist characters (Voltz and Grobe) set off a chain reaction of over 250 Coke & Mentos geysers.
In November 2006, Google announced EepyBird's "Domino Effect" video would be the inaugural video for its Sponsored Video Program. According to National Public Radio, EepyBird's Diet Coke and Mentos work was the impetus for Google deciding to pay creators of viral video and Voltz and Grobe were the first "amateur" video creators to sign with Google to share ad revenue.
television network and Coca-Cola.
EepyBird's "Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" has received approximately 13 million views on television and 4 million views online.
's 2007 "Agency of the Year" issue, featured a large photo of Voltz and Grobe in their trademark lab coats and goggles and the accompanying article described EepyBird's Coke & Mentos Experiments as "the most important commercial content of 2006." Media Magazine wrote that EepyBird's Diet Coke and Mentos video is "a textbook example of how a company can harness the power of viral video" and the U.K.'s Times Online website has described EepyBird's work as among the few "adverts so good people choose to watch them."
"The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" earned EepyBird a second Emmy Nomination and won the Online Media Marketing and Advertising 2007 "Best in Show" award.
In 2009, "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" won the Webby Award for Branded Content prevailing over many larger industry players including: Nike
, BMW
, Burger King
, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky
and R/GA
. By popular online vote, EepyBird's video also won the Webby "People's Voice Award" for Branded Content.
In 2007, Vh1
named EepyBird as Number 12 on its list of "Top Internet Superstars."
In the first nine months after EepyBird's first video was released, more than 10,000 copycat candy & soda videos were posted online, and Mentos estimated there had been 215 million mentions of its product in TV, print or radio stories.
EepyBird's video generated a 5-10% spike in 2 liter Diet Coke sales and a 20% spike in U.S. Mentos sales, which was the biggest sales increase in company history. Maybe more significantly, as of November, 2009, Mentos sales were still 15% above what they had been prior to the launch of EepyBird's video.
In the fall of 2006, EepyBird's second viral video, "The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" and video contest that EepyBird promoted for Coke along with that video, received 1.5 billion impressions.
, Maine.
Fritz Grobe, the shorter of the two, left studies of mathematics at Yale University
to become a juggler, going on to win five gold medals at the International Jugglers Association Championships
. From 2004 to 2007, he toured with the Cirque du Soleil
spin-off "Birdhouse Factory" as a lead character and featured solo clown.
Stephen Voltz, the taller of the two, has an A.B. from Oberlin College
(1979) and a law degree from the New York University School of Law (1984). In 2000, he produced and starred in his own one-man physical comedy show "The Benefit of Doubt" at the San Francisco Fringe Festival.
As of 2010, both Voltz and Grobe serve on the Board of Directors of the Celebration Barn Theater.
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
for Viral Video in 2007 and, was named "Online Game Changer of the Decade" in December 2009 by the readers of GoViral.com as "the most significant online marketing campaign of the decade."
EepyBird describes itself as a company that explores, "how everyday objects can do extraordinary things."
Their video experiments also include the viral hits "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" and "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" Altogether, their videos have been viewed online over 60 million times and have won numerous awards, including two Webby Awards, two Webby "People's Voice" Awards, and two Emmy
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nominations.
EepyBird was prominently featured in the 2009 Grammy Award winning Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
music video "Pork and Beans
Pork and Beans (song)
"Pork and Beans" is a song by the American alternative rock band Weezer, released on its 2008 album Weezer. It was released in digital form on April 24, 2008. The track debuted at number 19 on Billboards Modern Rock chart, and spent eleven weeks at number one. Critics generally liked the song,...
".
First viral video: "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments"
In November 2005, EepyBird created their first Coke & Mentos experiment as the finale to a sketch called "In The Kitchen With Fritz" at the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield, MaineBuckfield, Maine
Buckfield is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. Buckfield is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England City and Town Area. It is a member of Maine School Administrative District 39 along with nearby Hartford and Sumner...
. That performance culminated in a ten-bottle Coke & Mentos fountain.
Spurred on by the response of the live crowd, they then spent the next five months working on new effects and preparing a 101-bottle experiment modeled on the Bellagio
Bellagio (hotel and casino)
Bellagio is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in the Paradise area of unincorporated Clark County, Nevada, USA and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. It is owned by MGM Resorts International and was built on the site of the demolished Dunes hotel and casino.Inspired by the...
fountains in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. They filmed their big experiment, "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments: Experiment #137" on April 29, 2006 in a field in Buckfield, Maine.
Launch and viral spread
On June 3, 2006, EepyBird posted its "Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" video on EepyBird.com. The only person they told about the site was Voltz's brother David, nonetheless, within hours EepyBird.com began getting thousands of visitors. By the end of the first day they had over 14,000 views.On Monday morning, June 5, 2006, a producer from "The Late Show with David Letterman"
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
called and invited Voltz and Grobe to perform their piece on the Letterman show. Later that same week, Perfetti van Melle
Perfetti Van Melle
Perfetti Van Melle is a privately held Italian global manufacturer of confectionery and gum. It was formed in 2001 with the acquisition of Van Melle of the Netherlands, by the Italian group Perfetti of Italy and having its corporate headquarters in Lainate , Italy.Perfetti Van Melle bills itself...
(the makers of Mentos) called to offer their support. On Wednesday, June 7, 2006 All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
aired an interview with EepyBird.
In the first nine days after their website went live, Eepybird.com had over 2 million visitors. Within less than a year EepyBird's "Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" video had received more than 20 million viewers online. As of December, 2009 there have been over 60 million views of EepyBird videos online.
Second viral video: "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect"
Perfetti Van Melle, Coca-colaThe Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
and Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
sponsored EepyBird's second viral video, "The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect."
In this video EepyBird's two lab-coated scientist characters (Voltz and Grobe) set off a chain reaction of over 250 Coke & Mentos geysers.
In November 2006, Google announced EepyBird's "Domino Effect" video would be the inaugural video for its Sponsored Video Program. According to National Public Radio, EepyBird's Diet Coke and Mentos work was the impetus for Google deciding to pay creators of viral video and Voltz and Grobe were the first "amateur" video creators to sign with Google to share ad revenue.
Third viral video: "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments"
In 2008, EepyBird turned to new materials and released "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" in which they used over a quarter of a million sticky notes to create colorful waterfall and slinky-like effects in an office setting. That video was jointly sponsored by OfficeMax, the ABC FamilyABC Family
ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...
television network and Coca-Cola.
EepyBird's "Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" has received approximately 13 million views on television and 4 million views online.
Critical response
The cover of Advertising AgeAdvertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
's 2007 "Agency of the Year" issue, featured a large photo of Voltz and Grobe in their trademark lab coats and goggles and the accompanying article described EepyBird's Coke & Mentos Experiments as "the most important commercial content of 2006." Media Magazine wrote that EepyBird's Diet Coke and Mentos video is "a textbook example of how a company can harness the power of viral video" and the U.K.'s Times Online website has described EepyBird's work as among the few "adverts so good people choose to watch them."
Awards
"The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" won the Webby Awards' first award for Viral Video, and first Webby People's Voice (popular vote) Award for Viral Video and was nominated for the first Online Video Emmy Award (Variety)."The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" earned EepyBird a second Emmy Nomination and won the Online Media Marketing and Advertising 2007 "Best in Show" award.
In 2009, "The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments" won the Webby Award for Branded Content prevailing over many larger industry players including: Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
, BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
, Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky
Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Crispin Porter + Bogusky , a member of publicly-traded MDC Partners, is an advertising agency that currently employs around 1,000 people. It was founded in 1965 by Sam Crispin.. Crispin then became partners with Chuck Porter and Alex Bogusky...
and R/GA
R/GA
R/GA Media Group Inc. is an advertising agency headquartered in New York — with additional offices in San Francisco, Chicago, London, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Singapore, and Stockholm. The agency is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies , one of four global advertising holding companies...
. By popular online vote, EepyBird's video also won the Webby "People's Voice Award" for Branded Content.
In 2007, Vh1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
named EepyBird as Number 12 on its list of "Top Internet Superstars."
Impact on sales of Coke and Mentos
Ten days after EepyBird released the video, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mentos had already received over $10 million worth of publicity from the video.In the first nine months after EepyBird's first video was released, more than 10,000 copycat candy & soda videos were posted online, and Mentos estimated there had been 215 million mentions of its product in TV, print or radio stories.
EepyBird's video generated a 5-10% spike in 2 liter Diet Coke sales and a 20% spike in U.S. Mentos sales, which was the biggest sales increase in company history. Maybe more significantly, as of November, 2009, Mentos sales were still 15% above what they had been prior to the launch of EepyBird's video.
In the fall of 2006, EepyBird's second viral video, "The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect" and video contest that EepyBird promoted for Coke along with that video, received 1.5 billion impressions.
World records
EepyBird, along with Mentos, has orchestrated three world records for the most simultaneous Coke and Mentos geysers:- 504 simultaneous geysers in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 4, 2007
- 851 simultaneous geysers in BredaBredaBreda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
, Netherlands, September 15, 2007
- 1,360 simultaneous geysers in LeuvenLeuvenLeuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
, Belgium, April 23, 2008
- 2,433 soda fountains simultaneous geysers in Pasay City, Philippines, October 18th, 2010
Key people
EepyBird's founders, Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe, met in 2000 while studying clowning at the Celebration Barn Theater in South ParisSouth Paris, Maine
South Paris is a census-designated place located within the town of Paris in Oxford County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 2,237 at the 2000 census...
, Maine.
Fritz Grobe, the shorter of the two, left studies of mathematics at Yale University
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
to become a juggler, going on to win five gold medals at the International Jugglers Association Championships
International Jugglers' Association
The International Jugglers' Association or IJA is the oldest and largest organization of jugglers. It is open to members worldwide.-Benefits of Membership:* Special from major prop vendors worldwide.* Member prices in the IJA’s ....
. From 2004 to 2007, he toured with the Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
spin-off "Birdhouse Factory" as a lead character and featured solo clown.
Stephen Voltz, the taller of the two, has an A.B. from Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
(1979) and a law degree from the New York University School of Law (1984). In 2000, he produced and starred in his own one-man physical comedy show "The Benefit of Doubt" at the San Francisco Fringe Festival.
As of 2010, both Voltz and Grobe serve on the Board of Directors of the Celebration Barn Theater.