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You Sucjk at Viral Marketing

Posted by SpaceBass on February 1st, 2008 filed in trailheads

Phebco

Our next find comes from our favorite tipster, us! So, suck on that! If you frequent the group blog BoingBoing, you may have seen a recent series of web videos ostensibly by a guy named “Donnie Hoyle,” shot in the conceit of a series of tutorials on how to use a certain image editing software package. The first, cleverly entitled, “You Sucjk at Photoshop,” was indeed hilarious as it and the next few episodes revolved around Donnie’s marital difficulties, as well as his lack of attention to his online gaming clanmates.

I spotted Episode 5 posted (again to BoingBoing) today and it started out a bit differently than the previous ones. This time, Donnie is at “work” and we get to revel in his troubles there, which pretty much mirror how he interacts with his wife, it seems. But wait, that doesn’t sound like a real company, does it? Phebco? It’s got a great motto, though, “Innovation. Vision. Waste.” Classic. Just check out this screen shot of his desktop:

Phebco Desktop

Hmmm, Google has never heard of this company, yet Phebco has a website! And sure enough, Donnie Hoyle is employed there as an “Associate Mgr., Dumping.” Sounds like fun. You should email him and ask him if it is.

It’s not too hard to track down WHOIS really behind this if your ARG skillz are l33t like ours. Screenshot of the website, along with sneaky detective data after the jump.

Phebco Site

The domain is registered to Big Fat Brain, LLC, which appears to be an interactive marketing company based out of Kentucky. You might remember them from such promotions as the iRobot Create campaign. Or, if you’re like us, you might have involuntarily snorted at the notion of having any idea who these cats are. Whatever, they’re still pretty funny. We do kind of wonder if the guys at BoingBoing knew this series was connected to a commercial entity and if so, could we have a few bucks too for perpetuating the meme?


9 Responses to “You Sucjk at Viral Marketing”

  1. The Comedian Says:
    February 2nd, 2008 at 7:02 am

    Actually, the motto is “Innovation. Vison. Waste.” with vision misspelled.

  2. Netninja » Blog Archive » You Suck at Photoshop 5 Says:
    February 2nd, 2008 at 10:24 am

    [...] SpaceBass over at Despoiler has discovered that it probably isn’t just some guy making funny videos, but that an actual marketing company is producing them. [?] Share This [...]

  3. SpaceBass Says:
    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am

    The Comedian wrote: Actually, the motto is “Innovation. Vison. Waste.” with vision misspelled.

    Wow, I totally read right by that everywhere. Good eye!

  4. shaun Says:
    February 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    how is it going to end???
    here is there channel
    more than just the photoshop stuff
    http://www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=384

  5. obo Says:
    February 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 am

    Big Fat Brain designed My Damn Channel. Big Fat Brain also does the Photoshop videos.

    http://blog.mydamnchannel.com/2007/11/20/old-media-is-old-112007-1201-am/

    http://www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=384

    Co-founder Troy Fitch has a B.A. in acting and theatre, according to his LinkedIn.

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/troyhitch

  6. The Comedian Says:
    February 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 am

    Some other mentions of Phebco on the web. The ebay one is likely a typo, but the portable apps reference might be how Donnie gets photoshop back and forth to work.

    After all, Phebco doesn’t let employees install software aps of their own, but there is a Phebco bread crumb on PortableApps.com?

    http://portableapps.com/user/8381/track

    ebay link

  7. wagdog Says:
    February 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

    Something’s gone wrong at Phebco. Their website has been “melting down” all this week. First gibberish, then all in binary. Now there’s a strange machine generated message on there with a binary string that translates in ASCII to “phebco 031008″.

    Could be a date – expect a product launch on 10th March of this year?

  8. The Comedian Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    # 6 is out.

    http://mydamchannel.com/Big_Fat_Brain/You_Suck_at_Photoshop/YouSuckAtPhotoshop6_545.aspx

  9. Viral Marketing Says:
    June 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    “sucjk”? I’m assuming this is all part of the promotion?