This healthcare clinic is desperately trying to stop the scourge of viral videos

BY BREE BROUWER 

MedExpress had a bit of fun with semantics in its latest round of YouTube pre-roll ads. The healthcare clinic just launched an “anti-viral” series of ads the company hopes are so boring, they’ll actually prevent the videos which come afterwards from going viral.

Created by ad agency Fitzgerald & Co, MedExpress’s anti-viral campaign loosely plays with the various meanings of viral. As a healthcare clinic, MedExpress’s goal is to stop infections and diseases from spreading among the U.S. population. And while “going viral” online is actually a good thing, MedExpress decided to jokingly lump viral videos in with the diseases it’s trying to stop. 

The resulting pre-roll ads boast a medical professional who tells the viewer in an effort to stop the upcoming video from going viral, MedExpress made the “most boring, unskippable video [ads] ever.” The medical employee then proceeds to do a bunch of (you guessed it) mundane activities, like trying not to blink or playing several instruments horribly wrong all at once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-apShaeSgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkplLAs7Spo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-apShaeSgY

Ironically, the MedExpress ads are just clever enough that some YouTube users may not actually be annoyed by them (which would help boost brand recall among those viewers). However, the MedExpress pre-roll ads are no Geico “unskippable” ads, so we’ll have to see how YouTube viewers respond to the healthcare clinic’s anti-viral campaign. You can check out all of MedExpress’s anti-viral pre-roll ads on the clinic’s official YouTube channel.

Screengrab via MedExpress UrgentCare on YouTube/YouTube