Yesterday I posted about how a serious brand can get involved in serious discussions online and how a serious brand can use YouTube to respond to a mass petition.

I wanted to follow up on an example of where a brand can respond to a video, posted from grassroots, that is about them. This guy posted a spoof of Tiger Woods playing a shot while walking on water. Great, loads of hits (88,000), bit of a laugh!

10 out 10 though, to the bright spark at EA Sports who decided to get Tiger involved in a YouTube response, playing along with the theme and showing HOW you play a shot while walking on water. Its got loads and loads of hits, (156,000) bit of a laugh! BUT it also shows Tiger/EA share the sense of humour of their target audience, makes you feel a bit closer to them because they’ve played along with something you have generated.

It pulls off a neat trick by making Tiger feel like a man of the people, difficult when you consider the phenomenal money he’s earning and the protected lifetsyle he leads ie he’s anything but like you and me! This is a marketing lesson that some Premiership footballers could learn.