a cell in which viruses replicate known as a virus factory see viroplasm . the viral factory type public industry viral marketing founded london united kingdom 2001 founder ed robinson matt smith headquarters london united kingdom area served global website theviralfactory.com the viral factory is a full service advertising agency based in shoreditch united kingdom . contents 1 history 2 style and content 3 notable clients 4 controversy 5 awards 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit the viral factory was founded in 2001 by ed robinson and matt smith . their first venture was a collaboration with director adam stewart and creatives richard peretti and gary lathwell to create headrush 1 an in house promotional viral which gained the fledging company its first web audience . another collaboration with adam stewart ; moontruth 2 aided in establishing the viral as a tool for public and media notoriety . one of the viral factory s first major corporate campaigns was a series of virals for the united states brand trojan condoms u.k european launch . this in turn led to an increase in global blue chip clients and further viral campaigns with brands such as microsoft ford and coca cola . in 2010 the viral factory closed its usa branch . style and content edit the viral factory work on feeding basic human emotions with anarchic versions of reality to get their client s message across often using a mockumentry film technique or computer generated animation to convince the viewer that the footage is real . 3 the viral factory has on occasions used covert seeding to amplify the supposed authenticity of their footage particularly in the levi freedom to move 4 campaign of 2006 . notable clients edit trojan condoms the trojan campaign parodied olympic events substituting them with sexual sports such as pelvic power lifting and masters of precision vaulting . bbc health and education gi jonny is a parody of a retro children s action toy television commercial . sponsored by the bbc to raise aids awareness amongst 16 to 25 year old british males starring gi jonny and captain bareback . samsung an animation created using the product to illustrate its functions . controversy edit moontruth playing in to the hands of conspiracy theorists a film was leaked to the public that supposedly proved that man had never in fact landed on the moon and that the moon landing was in fact staged in a television studio . this viral hoax led to 3 000 people taken in by the footage calling nasa to complain about their dishonesty in saying that they had conquered the moon . ford ka campaign . a viral entitled cat for the ford ka found notoriety in 2006 . depicting a cat getting its head chopped off in the ka roof . the viral caused outrage which led to the advertising agency that allegedly commissioned the viral and ford the client to claim that they had never approved the virals release . 5 awards edit cannes cyber gold lion 6 trojan games 2004 revenge phillips ambx 2006 epica 7 gold axe lynx ravenstoke 2005 london international awards gold viral fingerskilz hewlett packard 2007 webby awards not for profit people s voice winner gi jonny bbc learning 2008 d & ad yellow pencil viral animation & motion graphics & youtube 2007 awards nomination most creative for how we met samsung electronics 2008 see also edit viral marketing seeding agency viral video list of internet phenomena webby awards references edit youtube headrush the viral factory self promotion . youtube moon truth . youtube cloverfield oil rig . youtube levi jeans freedom to move . digital arts online features the viral factory . cannes lions . epica awards . external links edit the viral factory the guardian online new media & advertising business week viral video grows up bbc news top ten viral videos digitalarts the viral factory brandchannel toni smith retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title the viral factory & oldid 715241833 categories marketing companies of the united kingdom navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 14 april 2016 at 15 26 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view