Oscar Mayer wants to give your dad $5,000….and then send him to an early grave

Last week, Oscar Mayer announced an online Father’s Day contest to find the “Oscar Mayer Bacon Sizzling Dad.” One lucky dad will receive a year’s supply of bacon, $5,000 cash, and presumably put himself on the fast track to a triple bypass.

http://www.facebook.com/OscarMayer

What I found interesting about this particular giveaway was that it represents a great example of a corporation capitalizing on an internet meme. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term, a meme can be any offbeat idea that propagates quickly through email, youtube, or social network. You might already be familiar with the most popular internet memes such as Lolcats or the unstoppable RickRoll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_internet_memes

Over the past two years, a new internet meme has formed around bacon. Yes, that’s right, bacon. Countless blogs and message boards have taken our favorite breakfast food and humorously theorized its use for such items as the bacon briefcase (shown) or iPhone carrying case. Black Rock Spirits has even taken two of my favorite consumables, bacon and booze, and combined them to form Bacon Flavored Vodka as an actual product.

http://bakonvodka.com/

Even though Oscar Mayer has not directly referenced the internet bacon craze of recent years, they are undoubtedly aware of how popular it has become within certain internet subcultures. Not surprisingly, the same internet mediums responsible for promoting the bacon meme have also given a huge publicity boost to Oscar Mayer’s latest viral marketing effort. So for the small price of $5,000, the Company has turned an existing internet phenomenon into its own marketing tool and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising.